


The Olitzitz

by secooper87



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio), Shockwave Vampires
Genre: Action/Adventure, Crossover, F/M, Mystery, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-08-29 18:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 53
Words: 114,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8500783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secooper87/pseuds/secooper87
Summary: When CIA Coordinator Narvin, another Time Lord, seeks the Doctor out to help him rescue a damsel in distress, the Doctor didn't realize it was all a set-up for an adventure that could shatter all the societal norms of his time. With the threat of a Time War looming over him, the Doctor must solve the mystery before it's too late.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, again, everyone! Long time no write!
> 
> Hope you like Doctor #8! **TONS** of him in this story!
> 
> (Except... I guess he only actually gets into the story in Chapter 2. Oops.)
> 
> Before you get confused, the Seo in this story is **different** from the one in the other stories (although you'll see how they are connected by the end of the story). This is the Seo from _Shockwave Vampires_ and _Dux Bellorum_ , which are published on Amazon Kindle and Fictionpress. I like to think of her as Seo Snr, versus the other, who is Seo Jr.
> 
> Mostly, this story will be a crossover between _Shockwave Vampires_ and _Doctor Who_. There is a little bit of Buffy in there, too, though - you'll notice this more later on.
> 
> It's absolutely a prequel to my series, Adventures of a Line Hopper.
> 
> Enjoy!

_Once upon a time, there lived a powerful magician who came from a mystical alien race. He had left a home planet filled with civil war and chaos, and had gone out into the universe hoping to find a better way of life. But it hadn't quite happened that way._

_The magician had made a mistake._

_An innocent man was wronged. Monsters were unleashed. Sacred trusts were broken. And the woman he loved…_

_Yes._

_He'd made so many mistakes. Terrible… horrible mistakes._

_"_ _But falling in love," said the magician, "that was never a mistake. I wouldn't take it back. Not for the whole universe."_

_He leaned over and took his daughter's left hand in his. Their hands shone, as they touched._

_"_ _Your mother," he told her, "was so beautiful. So intelligent." He shared the memory with her, the psychic images threading through their fingers. "Can you see?"_

_The little girl nodded._

_"_ _I loved her with more than just my heart," said the magician. "I loved her with my soul. She was of my right hand — just as you are, now."_

_The little girl frowned, confused. But she let him take her other hand in his._

_"_ _This is the power of my people," said the magician. "The left hand is for sharing. The right is for sacrifice." Their right hands glowed, as well, as the magician accessed his great power. "I share my memories with you — as I do with many others — with the power of my left hand. But my soul is the gift I share for those of my right hand. I give you a part of myself, as a sacrifice. For you are my daughter, and someday, all that is mine will be yours."_

_The little girl was very young. She had never met another mystical alien besides her father. She did not understand the power of the right hand. But she felt his love for her, inside that transfer of power._

_When they were done, the magician felt a little weaker, for his sacrifice. But he saw the face of his beloved daughter, and it gave him strength._

_"_ _The power of the right hand is sacred," the magician warned her. "It is a bond between you and another person. It is a sacrifice… a part of yourself that you can never take back." He leaned in closer to her. "If you share that power with the wrong person, then your soul will be lost. You will be lost." He tucked some hair behind her ear. "I cannot bear to see you lost like that."_

_The little girl looked down at her right hand._

_"_ _Will people want me to share it?" asked the little girl._

_The magician laughed. "Everyone will," he said. "Only one race is too aloof to want it — but given the chance, they would hunt you down and destroy you, for having it."_

_The magician took her shoulders in his hands. Looked deep into her eyes._

_"_ _Beware the Time Lords," he told her. "Or they will be your death, some day."_

_He took her tiny right hand, and curled it into a fist._

_The little girl felt as if she carried the magic of the universe, in that fist._

_"_ _There are only three things I truly fear, in this universe," said the magician. "The Time Lords are one of them. My own people — should they ever stop fighting for long enough to track me down — are the other."_

_He kissed the top of her head, and thought this concluded the matter._

_But the little girl caught his arm. "And the third thing?"_

_"_ _Third?"_

_"_ _You said three things frightened you," said the little girl. "But you only told me two."_

_"_ _Ah." The magician fell silent, for a long moment. A terrible look spread across his face. A terrible fear sprung up in his eyes. "The third thing I fear… more than anything else in the whole universe… is that my past mistakes will come back to haunt me."_

_And they did._

_It was after the little girl had been tucked into bed, just as she was drifting off to sleep. She heard things breaking, downstairs. The little girl's eyes popped open._

_There was more breaking._

_The splintering of wood. The shattering of glass. The sounds of punches and hits and weapons._

_Then… screaming._

_The little girl hid under the covers. She decided this was just a nightmare, and she had to wake up. She heard a blood curling shriek, and squeezed her eyes shut. Knew her daddy would wake her up, any time, and rub her back and tell her that he'd made the nightmare go away._

_By the time the screaming stopped, the girl was sobbing. Still tucked under the covers, as far as she could go. Waiting for her daddy to come in and tell her everything was all right._

_The door to her bedroom opened._

_The girl heard a man's footsteps, as he entered her room._

_"_ _Daddy?" the girl said, peeking out from her covers._

_The man was not her daddy._

_He was tall, his skin too pale, his eyes cold black orbs, brown hair slicked back and covered in specks of silvery-colored blood… and droplets of the same silver blood dripped from his canines._

_"_ _Forget your daddy," said the man. He took out a handkerchief, and wiped his mouth. "You'll never see that monster again."_

_He lunged forwards. Grabbed her by her right wrist._

_"_ _From now on," he said, "you're mine."_

_That was the end of the fairytale, for the little girl. All that was left, after that… was the nightmare._

* * *

Sil, entrepreneurial space slug of Thoros Beta, was concluding the tour for his latest potential customer, Miss Christina DeVoldaq.

Or, rather, he was concluding talking to her, while a slave team dragged him around the factory on a cushion-clad sedan, pausing only to bathe his slimy skin in water.

"...which, of course, leads to the final product," said Sil, smacking one of his bearers so they'd drag him forwards. "The weaponized chronon slurry. A crucial component for any effective temporal weaponry."

"Because if the Daleks and the Time Lords are about to start a Time War," said Christina, "who are we not to profit from it?"

"Precisely," Sil agreed.

Christina looked down at the labor pits, one last time. Sil couldn't help but admire her. Spotless business suit, designer briefcase, blond hair in a perfect bun — and her eyes!

Ice cold. Impartial.

Brilliant.

"I assume this isn't the same tour you gave the Gallifreyan representatives, before they signed up with you?" Christina asked.

"I did not think the Time Lords would appreciate the entrepreneurial genius of my torture camps and labor pits," Sil admitted. "Some Time Lords can be… difficult about that." His voice grew bitter — as he remembered all the times that meddling Doctor had subverted his plans.

Christina raised an eyebrow at him. "You think they'd stop buying from you, if they learned the truth? They seem pretty desperate."

Sil chuckled. "Yes, well… I wasn't exactly their first choice. But with all their other suppliers going bankrupt…"

"…you can gouge Gallifrey for every last penny they've got. I know." Christina's eyes shone bright, as she headed towards the door that led away from the labor pits and back to Sil's office.

Sil smacked one of his bearers on the head, so they'd lift him up and drag him after her.

"Of course, your exploitation of Gallifrey is not why I contacted you, Mr. Sil," said Christina. "Exploiting Gallifrey is easy. Everyone's doing it. It's your exploitation of the Daleks that I find… quite ingenious."

Sil chuckled, fanning himself, as they entered his office. "You flatter me, Miss DeValdaq."

Christina went over to his desk and opened her briefcase. Took out a copy of their contract. "Yes," she muttered. "A brilliant strategy. You predict which planets the Daleks will want to mine out, next — then send in a spaceship, to raid any art or valuables from those planets, ahead of time — and wait until the Daleks have wiped out all life on the planet's surface, so you can sell the now-rare items at an impressive profit. Genius."

"Ah, but _you_ , Miss DeValdaq," said Sil, with a glare at his bearers that made them realize they were supposed to be covering him in water, right now, "are the true genius. Never before have I considered that the _populations_ of those planets might also have value."

Christina gave a dark laugh.

"What, for the Daleks, is target practice," said Christina, "I call… dinner." She flipped through the contract. "My requirements shouldn't be too difficult or expensive to achieve. I've given you the technology to abduct the population of a whole planet. And you have more than enough ships at your disposal. I take it you have already installed the technology I supplied into the ships?"

"Yes, yes," said Sil. He took out a pen. "Everything is ready, just as soon as you sign the contract. We can get started, immediately." He paused, hesitating. "I take it… you don't need us to extract the blood from the populations, _before_ we deliver them to you?"

Christina glanced around, as if checking the hidden corners of the room for spying Time Lords. Then, satisfied, she leaned in.

"I'll be honest with you, Sil," Christina whispered. "I don't just drink blood; I drink time and probability. If my victims aren't alive… they're tasteless. It's like eating sand."

Something predatory shone in her eyes.

Sil nodded, slowly. "I imagine that isn't terribly popular with the powers on Gallifrey."

Christina nodded. "That's why I came to you," she said. "My friends, the Visconti Brothers, recommended you. They said you were extremely… discreet."

The Visconti Brothers.

Yes, Sil remembered them. Some terrorist organization cooking up temporal disasters, on Earth, to promote their radical agenda. And since they had money to pay, and Sil had weaponized chronons to spare…

"Your secret is safe with me," Sil promised.

Christina gave a grateful nod, then took the pen from him and signed the contract.

As she did, Sil gave the command for his ships to depart and abduct the populations that Christina had just paid for.

Christina's smile widened, as the ships left.

"Now, in terms of your final payment…" Sil prompted.

Christina closed her briefcase. "I'll be happy to cut you a check — once I've had a bite to eat." She spun around, to face the door. "I promise to pay for any personnel I choose to… remove from your service."

Sil gurgled his laughter. "I can always find more! Cheap labor is easy to come by."

Christina nodded, as she headed out of the room.

Then paused, in the doorway. "Oh, I nearly forgot." She turned, a sudden gleam in her eye. "The Nightmare Ring."

Sil froze.

Then pretended he had no idea what she was talking about. "Nightmare… ring? Is that a piece of jewelry? A trinket for your fine ladyship's hand?"

"It's a weapon," said Christina. "A dangerous Olitzitz weapon. But you knew that. Didn't you… Sil?" She turned around. "Have a nice lunch."

And left.

Sil frowned, deeply.

Then turned to the nearest monitor, and called up his boss. "This… Christina DeVoldaq," Sil told him, when the call went through. "I'm starting to suspect that she has some ulterior motive. She knows about the Nightmare Ring."

* * *

Christina… although that wasn't really her name… entered the restrooms acting just as cold and calculated as before. The moment she left the view of the cameras, however, she dropped the act.

"I knew the Nightmare Ring was here," she muttered. "Just knew it!" She clicked open her briefcase, then opened up a secret compartment in the back, and removed three network hackers, a time-space conversion unit, and the secret radio that connected her with the slave workers down in the labor pit.

She attached the network hackers to the wall, connected them to the time-space converter, and set them to work in the background. She switched on the radio. "Seo to slave pit. In position for phase two."

A moment of silence. Then, "We're in position, down here. Ready to release recombined tri-chronite particles."

Seo grinned. She'd spent the last week down in that slave pit, secretly changing around all the temporal processing equipment.

"Release," Seo said.

They did.

The whole building shook. The power flickered. The security hackers bleeped at her, the space-time converter whirred, and the network security… broke down.

"Just like cracking a safe," said Seo, as she placed her hand on the space-time converter, and began using the network to gain access to all assets, bank accounts, and long-term loans. "Except safes are so much more satisfying to crack in four dimensions."

* * *

"She's a thief?!" Sil cried, when his boss told him the truth.

Why hadn't this woman been flagged, the second she made contact with them?! It was as if someone had infiltrated his team of background checkers, and changed the files.

But Sil's boss had the unaltered files.

And the so-called 'Christina' actually matched the appearance of a notorious criminal from planet Earth, going by the name "Seosyrae."

"Speciality: corporate espionage," Sil's boss said, "sabotage, theft, and timeline corruption for the purposes of turning a profit." He turned a page in the file. "It appears her latest capers have all targeted companies exploiting the upcoming Time War. She even shut down the Time War Suppliers Cartel."

" _She's_ the reason everyone else has been going bankrupt?!" Sil cried.

Sil tried to call up the ships he'd sent out, to recall them.

But something in the technology he'd installed, in these ships, interfered with his signal. They wouldn't respond. They'd just keep going to their original targets, to abduct those populations and dump them where they'd been instructed.

Sil tried calling the galactic police. But they put him on hold.

Finally, desperate, he made one last call.

He got through, this time, and began to tell them everything — but soon, he was cut off, as the whole building shook and the lights began to flicker. All Sil's communications connections shut down.

Alarms began to blaze, as the slave workers released themselves from the labor pits and torture camps, and began to swarm. All network security shut itself down. The stock price began to plummet. Bank accounts began to plunge. Any financial security the company had… took a drastic and sudden nosedive.

Even his bearers ran away.

Sil began to panic. His last call had got through… but what if they didn't come? He to do something! Fix this! But how?

Frustrated, he slammed a fist down on his computer.

"That's not going to help," came a voice from the door.

Sil turned, to find Christina — except that wasn't really her name — now standing in the doorframe, smiling.

"You!" Sil cried.

Seo waved. "Yes, me! Hello! Thanks for the money. Oh, and thanks for helping evacuate all those innocent people, before the Daleks attacked their planets. That was an unexpected bonus."

Sil knew his only hope was to stall her, until his help arrived. His last call _had_ gotten through. And he had to hope the recipients were as desperate as they seemed.

If Seo was in the mood to gloat…

"What have you done?!" Sil shouted.

"Since I first arrived here, undercover, two months ago?" Seo counted off the items on her fingers. "Drained your profits, sold off your assets, took out loans in your name that you can't hope to pay back, freed all your slave workers — oh, and, by the way, I paid for all the technology you installed on those ships by draining your personal bank account, Sil."

"What?!"

"It's all about the money," said Seo. "That's what counts. Oh, and — don't bother reporting me to Earth authorities. They found out about your little arrangement with the Visconti Brothers. They're perfectly happy to let me shut you down and take all your money. In fact, Earth wants to give you the death penalty..." Seo shrugged. "But there's no profit, for me, if I kill you. So I'm fine, either way."

Sil wondered what was taking his help so long to arrive. Shouldn't they be here by now?

"What you're doing is illegal!" Sil said. "Even if Earth won't prosecute, it's still against galactic law. I've already called the galactic police…"

"And I bet you didn't get through," Seo guessed. She shrugged. "I've paid the galactic police very handsomely to… look the other way… when I deal with companies exploiting the Time War. Trust me, Sil — I do this kind of thing _a lot_."

Sil was now starting to get angry that his relief wasn't here, yet. He was running out of ideas for how to drag this conversation out.

"But, as much as I love explaining to sadistic, immoral, and corrupt corporate owners why I've just destroyed their livelihood," Seo said, "I've got a job to do, here. That's why I came back. Turns out… your personal computer is the only one with the data I need."

She leapt forwards, before Sil even knew what was happening. Landed in front of Sil's personal computer, and attached the time-space converter to it. The converter bleeped, the computer switched on, and Seo easily hacked into the files.

"The Nightmare Ring," Seo breathed, as she found it. "At last."

Sil stared at her. "That was all you wanted?!" he cried. "That's why you did all of this? Not for money or to save people — just for that weapon?!"

"Let's just say… I have a history with that weapon," said Seo. "I know what it can do for me. And I'm planning to use it."

Sil kept staring, a moment longer. Then, he began to laugh.

And laugh!

In fact, he laughed so hard, he almost fell off of his sedan.

"What's so funny about…?" Seo began. Then she stopped. Because she found out, for herself.

"I called the Time Lords," said Sil, "and told them I'd caught the woman who's been sabotaging their war effort. I'm sure they've been looking for you for years."

Seo's hands twitched, uneasily. He was right, of course.

"I thought they'd arrive here and destroy you," Sil continued. "But if you want the Nightmare Ring that much… I shouldn't have bothered."

Seo stared at the screen, which told her what had happened to the Nightmare Ring.

"You sold it on," Seo breathed, "to…" She turned back to him, growing horror on her face. "You're insane!"

Sil laughed even harder.

In the background, Seo could hear TARDISes materializing. She didn't doubt that Gallifrey would have her head for shutting down yet another of their temporal suppliers. She had to get out of there, fast.

She downloaded the data she needed. Hid her tracks on the computer.

Then turned. And ran.

"You're already dead!" Sil shouted after her. "You don't know it, but you're dead!"

Seo ran until she was in range, then activated her mini-teleporter — and, in a flash, found herself back on her ship. She blasted off, eager to get away from that planet, that time, and the unwelcome Time Lord company her presence was already attracting.

When she was away, she transferred the data from Sil onto her ship's computer.

And stared at it, once again. A grim hopelessness on her face.

"He's right," Seo said. "If I go get the Nightmare Ring, I'm dead. And if I don't… a woman I don't know, whom I have no connection to… will die — causing the collapse of everything I've been working towards."

She stood a long time, just staring at the data.

Weighing it all in her mind. Her life… versus her cause.

"Seo," she said to herself, as she called up the holograms she needed to accelerate her ship, "you really are a suicidal idiot, sometimes."

And headed towards certain death.

* * *

"...lost her?!" shouted Cardinal Ollistra, who had been placed on Gallifrey's War Council, as soon as it had become clear that war was inevitable. "She's a member of a lesser race, using a ship that runs on antiquated temporal technology! How could you possibly have lost her?"

The Time Lords had spread out across the ruins of Sil's complex, trying to find a trace of the thief, and salvage anything they could.

"I… don't know, Cardinal," one of her subordinates admitted. "But we can find no hint of a temporal trace for her ship." He checked the scan again. Shook his head. "It's as if someone else is… obscuring it. Someone with much more sophisticated technology than she has."

"The Daleks?" Cardinal Ollistra asked. It would make sense, given Seo's current obsession with sabotaging Gallifrey's armament efforts.

"I don't know," the underling said.

In the meantime, Narvin, Coordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency, had crept over to Sil's personal computer. Their thief had covered her tracks on the computer, of course… but Narvin was second-to-none at decryption and uncovering hidden computer trails.

"Coordinator Narvin," Cardinal Ollistra demanded, "on behalf of the War Council of Gallifrey, I command you to assist…"

"With respect, Cardinal," Narvin replied, not missing a beat in his decryption, "Gallifrey is not at war, yet. And I didn't come along to help you catch a thief. There are far, far bigger things in motion, here, than you can possibly imagine."

The file concerning the Nightmare Ring flashed up onto the monitor.

Narvin stared at it. "The Nightmare Ring," he muttered. "At last." Skimmed through the rest of the file. Frowned. "That's a problem."

"Madam Cardinal," Sil said to Ollistra. "Your lovely, grand wonderfulness! I am just a humble businessman, trying to do my part for Gallifrey. I would be delighted to continue, if you would only protect me from the terrible Earth people, and advance me the money to restart…"

"I think not," said Narvin, turning to Sil. "As Coordinator of the CIA, I am placing you, Sil of Thoros Beta, under arrest for selling the Nightmare Ring weapon to our enemies."

Sil found himself surrounded by staser-wielding Time Lords. He looked around himself, bewildered.

Cardinal Ollistra eyed Narvin, suspiciously. "Nightmare Ring?"

Narvin wiped the files from Sil's computer. "CIA business, Cardinal." He turned back to his own TARDIS. "But I think it's business I ought to see to, personally."

Cardinal Ollistra watched as he raced inside his ship, and it dematerialized.

Yes, Narvin was certainly up to something. And Ollistra didn't like it one bit.

She'd be having a word with the Lady President about this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a dark, dark night...
> 
> Still, on the bright side, the 8th Doctor, here, is bracing himself for a devastating Time War against the Daleks, which we all know will go extremely badly. And, in the Shockwave Vampires universe, Senator Xarian is basically about to death star the time-space continuum to end trans-galactic universalization. So... you know... compared to those things... we could be okay.
> 
> (Oh, God, I feel sick to my stomach.)
> 
> I think I'll go lose myself in the Doctor Who universe for a while. Or, you know, any other non-reality type thing.
> 
> Enjoy.

 

The Doctor, currently in his eighth incarnation, flitted around the central console, trying to work out where to go, next.

"The Ice Caves of Shabadabadon!" the Doctor cried. "You'll love it! Ice that shines like diamonds, covering hundreds of…!"

He looked up.

At the empty console room, around him.

"Ah, yes," the Doctor muttered. "No companions. I keep forgetting."

His TARDIS suddenly lurched, and the lights flashed. The console gave a shriek of complaint, and the cloister bell rang, ominously, in the background.

"Steady, Old Girl!" the Doctor urged, clinging to the console and pressing buttons. "Steady!" He glanced at the monitor, checking readouts. "A temporal incursion? In the vortex?" He looked up at the central column. "Has the war started, already?"

"Not yet, Doctor," came a voice to his right.

The Doctor turned.

Then sighed.

"Coordinator Narvin," said the Doctor. "How appalling to see you, again." He turned back to the central console and quickly settled the TARDIS into a steady flight path, again. The alarms shut off. "I've already told you, I want no part in Gallifrey's war plans."

"And when the war begins, I will respect those wishes," Narvin replied. "But since it hasn't — I need your help."

The Doctor decided the best way to get rid of him was to simply ignore him.

"Fourth moon of Ordelia Prime," the Doctor decided, setting coordinates. "Just in time for their fall festival!"

"Doctor," Narvin sighed, crossing his arms.

"Oh, sorry, are you still here?" the Doctor asked, idly. He flipped a few more switches. "Lovely apricots, on Ordelia Prime. And the square dancing is second to…!"

"Doctor, if you want any chance of saving your friend," Narvin shouted, over him, "we'll need to get moving."

The Doctor paused.

Looked up at Narvin.

"What friend?" the Doctor asked.

Narvin, deciding this was as good an acceptance as he was going to get, strolled forwards and began to program in the new coordinates. "There's a Dalek base on a hidden planet around the Pleiades," he said. "That's where they've brought the Nightmare Ring."

The Doctor sighed at the word 'Dalek'.

Brilliant.

This really _was_ some ploy to get him involved in war preparations.

"And whatever 'the Nightmare Ring' is, I'm sure the CIA can retrieve it without my help," the Doctor decided.

"Someone terribly clever is in that Dalek base, right now," said Narvin, "about to do something terribly foolish, that will get her killed. And since I've been carefully obscuring her time traces from the High Council ever since she flashed up on their radar — I'd rather they weren't aware that I'm attempting to rescue her."

"And I know this person?" the Doctor asked, flatly.

Narvin looked up at him. "Your friend is in deadly danger, Doctor," he said, very seriously. "The only hope you have of saving her is to help me, now. Will you do it?"

The Doctor leaned over the console.

Trying to decide if he believed Narvin.

"Before I agree to anything," the Doctor said, "I have one question." He brushed back his hair. "The Nightmare Ring?"

"A weapon," Narvin explained, "created by a powerful but extinct temporal race called the Olitzitz."

"Never heard of them."

"I expect not," Narvin muttered. He kept fiddling with the controls of the Doctor's TARDIS. "We don't know exactly what the Nightmare Ring is. But we know what it's done. The Olitzitz originally called it the Dream Circle — and designed it to be a tool for good. However, it was turned against them, and used to destroy their entire race."

"Hence, the Dream Circle becomes the Nightmare Ring," the Doctor said. "And… don't tell me. Gallifrey wants it for their war arsenal."

"At the moment, I don't really care what Gallifrey wants," Narvin replied — so sharply that it surprised the Doctor. "It's in Dalek hands. You know, as well as I, that it shouldn't be there."

"I see," the Doctor said. He could guess what Narvin wasn't telling him. "The CIA has its own plans for the Nightmare Ring. Plans you don't want the High Council knowing about."

The Doctor was tempted to simply refuse and run off somewhere… on principle. He wasn't the CIA's lackey!

But he sighed.

"My friend, you say?" the Doctor checked.

"One of your closest," Narvin confirmed. "She will die, unless you help me."

"Who?"

Narvin didn't answer.

"All right," the Doctor sighed, heading over to Narvin's side of the console. "I'll do it — but only to save her, whomever she may be, and only to make sure neither you, the CIA, nor the High Council ever get your hands on that weapon." He began to help set coordinates. "Where are we headed?"

"The planet Priberal," said Narvin. "They've shielded it, but I've set up a temporal tunnel that'll take us through two days after she went in. It's the closest I can get to her."

"Two days?!" The Doctor shook his head. "The Daleks will have exterminated her long before then." He fiddled with the controls of his ship. "Of course, a temporal tunnel is just a gravitational bend in the fabric of space-time. Which means, if I find the nearest black hole…"

He slammed the TARDIS into materialization, right next to one.

The ship buckled and strained, under the immense gravitational pull. The central column whined in irritation.

Narvin grabbed onto the console, struggling to contain his frustration. "Doctor, what do you think you're…?!"

"Just building up a little speed," the Doctor said. "Bending back your time tunnel. And…"

He waited until just before he hit the event horizon.

Then slammed a lever, and slingshotted the TARDIS through Narvin's tunnel.

"Ha-ha!" the Doctor cried. "Two days, you say? More like two hours, now!" The TARDIS began to shake even more violently. "Hold on tight, Narvin!"

"I'm beginning to suspect that getting you involved was a mistake!" Narvin shouted, over the noise.

As they hurtled towards the Dalek base.

* * *

Narvin was impressed that they managed to arrive without shredding the TARDIS to pieces. Although, judging by how the console room was filling with smoke, they weren't far off.

"Tough as old boots," the Doctor said, stepping out of the TARDIS and patting the outside. "Never doubted she could make it."

The planet was gray and lifeless, bleak beneath the light of the bright blue sun. They were surrounded by the ruins of a city — another civilization the Daleks had destroyed, for no good reason.

Narvin brought out a lifesign tracker. Studied it, carefully.

Then headed off. "She's this way. We should hurry."

The Doctor looked at Narvin, askance, as he hurried after him. "Oh? And just which of my friends are we going after, Narvin?"

Narvin still didn't answer.

They ran for quite a while, before Narvin stopped — next to the crumbling ruins of a building. Looked at his tracker, then glanced around himself. Searching for clues.

"I trust that means we're right on top of it?" the Doctor asked. He still couldn't see the Dalek base — but, then again, it was _secret_. "And your tracker can't work out where the door is?" He shook his head, and brought out his sonic screwdriver. "The CIA! Really!"

The Doctor hadn't set his screwdriver to scan for anything in particular — just a general sweep. But it immediately picked up an intense signal of temporal scarring, leading down below the surface.

"Interesting," the Doctor muttered. "Temporal scarring. A side effect of this Nightmare Ring?"

Narvin pretended he hadn't heard.

"Thing is, a Dalek base is bound to be temporally phased, as a disguise," the Doctor said. "But, in a patch of temporal instability like this, I can…"

He turned the screwdriver down towards the ground.

The veil dropped away, and a door appeared, in the dirt, about a meter away.

"I trust the CIA does have a way to break into this Dalek base?" the Doctor said, as they ran towards it. "Or would you like to be shown up by a screwdriver, yet again?"

Narvin just gave a weary sigh, and adjusted a setting on his tracker device.

It whirred. Then, slowly, unlocked the time seals on the base door.

A few minutes later, the door opened.

The Doctor made to step inside. But Narvin caught him by the arm, before he could.

"I know it's probably a pointless request," said Narvin, "but don't ask too many questions. She's a good person, but has an… unpleasant past."

A small smile crept up the Doctor's face. Was Narvin really asking him not to be nosy? Ha! Like that would ever happen!

"I thought you said I _knew_ her," the Doctor pointed out.

Narvin let go of the Doctor, and pushed past him, to enter the Dalek base, first. "Actually, if you recall," he said, "that wasn't exactly what I told you."

Figured.

The Doctor shoved his hands into his coat pockets. And went inside.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't what either of them had been expecting.

Most cameras and sensors were dead; the rest, extremely damaged. The same temporal interference pattern had been seared into every soot-streaked wall — a remnant of some catastrophe. The air felt dry and static, like the Daleks had erected a temporal stability field to counter the deep temporal scarring.

"Just two hours, Doctor?" Narvin asked, as they kept going.

It seemed like _a lot_ of damage for just two hours.

Too much.

"Plenty can happen in two hours!" the Doctor protested. "Must have caught the Daleks completely by surprise, if this kind of catastrophe happened so quickly."

And as they descended deeper into the base, it started to look like the Doctor was right. Whatever had happened here, the Daleks had never expected it.

The Doctor and Narvin kept stumbling upon Dalek corpses… their casings blown apart and the Dalek creatures, within, mangled and splattered.

"I take it this wasn't supposed to happen?" the Doctor asked, as they approached a group of dead Daleks.

Narvin stared at the tableaux, ever increasing worry etching his features. "No. Certainly not."

Oh, dear.

"Seems this 'Nightmare Ring' is more powerful than you expected, then," the Doctor said, inspecting one of the casings, more closely. "No security alarms, no cameras, Dalek husks everywhere. Whatever happened, here, appears to have been lethal — and absolute."

"She's alive," Narvin insisted. "She has to be. She _couldn't_ have…!"

The Doctor flicked his eyes over to Narvin.

A shadow had passed across Narvin's features. Pain and terror lingered behind his eyes. It was almost like… behind Narvin's calm exterior… he was falling apart.

"This should never have happened," Narvin said, his voice wavering. "The Nightmare Ring shouldn't have been able to do anything like this. I should never have let her…!"

He couldn't finish.

Narvin pulled out his tracker, and seemed reassured by the blinking lights on its surface. "Still alive. This way."

The Doctor followed.

His eyes were still on the nonfunctioning cameras, his screwdriver still searched for alarms and traps. But there was nothing. It had all been shut down or destroyed.

"Who is she?" the Doctor asked, softly.

Narvin didn't look back at him, just kept his eyes on the tracker. "It's hardly important."

"CIA?" the Doctor guessed. "High Council? Or some Time Lady in trouble with all of the above, whom you smuggled off Gallifrey?"

"Need I remind you, Doctor, not to ask too many questions?" Narvin reminded him. "As I said — she's hardly important. It's the Nightmare Ring I'm after."

He didn't even _intend_ for it to sound convincing.

He was clearly just trying to shut the Doctor up.

"Well, whoever she is," said the Doctor, stepping forwards and taking the lead, "she's certainly able to fend for herself. I don't think there's a single Dalek left alive in this entire…"

The Doctor didn't notice the live sensor until he'd stumbled through it.

The base suddenly blazed into life with alarms and alerts and intruder warnings. Dalek commands blared through the air, "SEEK, LOCATE, EXTERMINATE! SEEK, LOCATE, EXTERMINATE!"

"Automated system," the Doctor assured Narvin.

Then a Dalek swerved into view. "ALERT! ALERT! IT IS THE DOCTOR!"

The Doctor and Narvin darted out of the way, just missing the Dalek's laser blast.

"Or, on the other hand," the Doctor said, as they both ran for their lives, "maybe not."

They spun around a corner, and found themselves face-to-face with another Dalek.

"EXTERMINATE!" the Dalek shouted.

Narvin tugged the Doctor out of the way, but dropped the tracker, in the process. It burst into a thousand shards, under the Dalek gunfire.

They ran in another direction.

All at once, the previously disabled cameras blinked back on, and all the monitoring equipment came back online.

"Well, the tracker's gone, but no matter," the Doctor assured Narvin. "My sonic screwdriver can easily pick up a Gallifreyan life-sign."

"At the moment, Doctor," Narvin snapped, "I'm more concerned with keeping the two of us alive, than with finding her!"

"Yes, well, you say that… but you aren't, really, are you?" the Doctor asked. He easily adjusted the settings on his sonic, and began to scan.

Narvin snatched the sonic out of his hands. "Really, Doctor. Don't."

But the Doctor had seen the results of the scan, even before Narvin had taken the screwdriver from him. Results that showed… why Narvin was being so secretive. And why he didn't want the Doctor scan for lifesigns.

"She isn't Gallifreyan," the Doctor muttered. He laughed, under his breath. "Well, well, Narvin. You _do_ have hidden depths to you."

Narvin bit back his frustration. He could hear Daleks advancing, just out of sight, in front of them. He stopped running, and spun around… but could hear Daleks behind them, too.

The Doctor was surprised at how sluggish the Daleks seemed to be, following them. And, come to think of it, Daleks didn't usually miss this much, either.

"In here," Narvin said, using the Doctor's screwdriver to open a door, in the side of the corridor. "Quickly!"

The room they entered was pitch black, streaked with soot and temporal scarring. Narvin shut the door, behind them, and locked it.

Then they waited.

Quiet as they could, listening through the door, as the Daleks drifted across the hallway. They could hear the Dalek travel-cases whirring, as their eyestalks examined their surroundings.

"THE INTRUDERS HAVE DISAPPEARED."

"SEARCH LOWER LEVEL! SEEK, LOCATE, EXTERMINATE!"

After what felt like forever, they heard the last Dalek leave the hallway, outside their door.

"Strange," said the Doctor, reaching for the doorknob. "They're acting surprisingly stupid, for Daleks. Why…?"

Narvin put a hand on the Doctor's arm, to shush him. The Doctor paused… and heard it. The slightest sound of movement, in the darkness, behind them.

They weren't alone.

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Oh." He tried to peer through the darkness. "They might, of course, be keeping more than one prisoner on this base. It might not be…"

"Seo?" Narvin called out, using the Doctor's sonic as a torch.

A head popped out from behind a dead computer terminal at the far end of the room. "Narvin?!"

The Doctor peered at her. Now that he'd seen her, he knew — he'd never met this person in his life.

A pale-skinned woman in her 30's, deep brown eyes contrasting with ponytailed blond hair. Strange thing was — she looked completely uninjured and unfazed by her Dalek imprisonment.

"Escaping, I see," Narvin said. He grinned, despite himself. "Well, I'd have expected nothing less."

"I almost made it outside, when that alarm went off," Seo confirmed, jumping out of her hiding spot. She dusted herself off, confusion still evident on her face. "What are you doing here, Narvin? You're the _last_ person I expected to see here and now."

"As always, I'm flattered by your unswerving faith in me," Narvin said. He dug around in a pocket. "I came here to deliver you the biodata extract you requested. But considering the obvious results of your test run…" He gestured at the temporal scarring, "…I think we may want to abort." He put a hand on her shoulder. "And couldn't you have waited until I arrived, before you broke into this base? I thought we were doing this together."

Seo gritted her teeth. "I went in alone," she hissed, "because I figured a Time Lord breaking into a Dalek base to fiddle with a species-destroying weapon might be the spark in the powder keg that'd start your Time War!"

Narvin frowned. "Ah. Yes. I… see what you mean."

"Why did you do it?" Seo demanded. "Did you seriously think it'd be a good idea to land a TARDIS nearby, waltz in here without caring what alarms you set off, and then wave around a sonic screwdriver like an idiot?" She grabbed it from him, angrily. "You're practically screaming 'Time Lord' at them!"

"I…!" Narvin faltered. "I was worried about you."

Her anger fell away. There was something so terribly open, honest, and sincere about the way he said it… even a heart of stone would melt, with those words.

Seo looked at him, a long while. Then… gave a little smile. "Well," she said, "I'm flattered you thought I'd still be alive, after this long. I'll give you that."

She looked like she was going to hug him, but… something stopped her.

"This long?" the Doctor asked, stepping forwards and swiping the sonic screwdriver from her hands.

"That's what I was about to ask, as well," Narvin confirmed.

Seo stared at them. Not sure what they were getting at. "It _has_ been two months since I arrived." Then, noticing the look of horror on Narvin's face, added, "Oh. I see. That wasn't intentional."

"Certainly not." Narvin spun on the Doctor. "Two hours, you said!"

The Doctor fidgeted with the sonic, awkwardly. "Well… what with time distortion… and the Daleks' shielding…"

Narvin looked like he wanted to punch the man in the jaw.

"No harm done," Seo replied, separating them. "Even if the Doctor can't fly a TARDIS properly, he still managed to get you here. And the alarms drew the last few surviving Daleks away from the Nightmare Ring." She took Narvin's arm in hers, and smiled at him. "That gives us the perfect opportunity to fix it and put our plan into action."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows at his name.

"To be honest, I'm not sure it _is_ fixable," said Narvin, as they continued towards the door. "With a distortion pattern like this one, I think…"

Their voices drifted off, as they departed.

The Doctor lingered behind, sonic screwdriver in hand. He had a bad feeling about this. The rescue had been too easy, and the Daleks too stupid.

What was more, he couldn't think of one reason the Daleks would have kept Narvin's friend alive for two months — unless she was some kind of a trap for Narvin.

"Who is carrying, of all things, a biodata extract," the Doctor muttered. "What are you up to, Narvin?" He thought a moment longer. "And how did your friend know my name?"

Too many questions.

Not enough answers.

He saw Seo purposely leading Narvin away from one particular door, down the corridor, a little more quickly than she had the others. "Keep up, Doctor!" she called. "This way!"

She and Narvin turned a corner.

"I think I'll let the happy couple be, for a while," the Doctor decided, "and see what's behind this door."

He buzzed his sonic at the door she had avoided.

It opened.

The room behind it, unlike the others, was spotless. Time still felt scarred, so whatever had happened must have effected this room, as well — but the room had been cleaned. Sterilized, in fact.

The Doctor instantly recognized the setup — the translucent panelling on the walls, the blank bodies waiting for processing, the mind extractor attached to the operating chair…

And a humanoid body lying on the floor.

The Doctor hurried to it. The body was cold to the touch. She'd been dead a while. He turned her over. Her eyes were open… staring and lifeless. Her face was frozen the way it had been the moment she'd died — in utter agony, from a Dalek extermination ray.

The Doctor recognized her. Just like he recognized this place.

"A Dalek replication chamber," the Doctor said. He looked down at the horrified, lifeless figure in his arms. It was the exact same woman who'd just walked off with Narvin. "I'm so sorry. It appears… we really did arrive too late."


	4. Chapter 4

Narvin didn't notice anything was wrong until he got to the Nightmare Ring. Or maybe… he just didn't _want_ to notice anything was wrong.

"You will fix the Nightmare Ring," Seo commanded, when they arrived. "Obey. Obey!"

It was, true to its name, the shape of a gigantic metal ring, with a few zigzagging beams running through the center and two human-sized harnesses dangling, one on either side. It was clearly supposed to be propped up so the top of the ring towered high in the air… but someone was in the midst of repairing it, right now, so it lay on its side — with much of the casing removed.

"Are you feeling all right?" Narvin checked.

Seo blinked. Then gave a nervous laugh. "Yeah. Sure. Just… stressed." She glanced around herself. "Where's the Doctor?"

"Being nosy, I expect," Narvin said. "He usually is." He walked around the perimeter, examining the inner wiring of the Nightmare Ring. "This isn't precisely what I expected, when you described this machine to me. You told me it wasn't a temporal device."

"Did I?"

Narvin poked at a cluster of wires. "That being said, I can see why it overloaded. The temporal compensators are burned clean through."

"How?" Seo asked. "From when I used it and fried this place?"

Narvin shook his head. "No, from before. Long, long before. Some kind of massive temporal force hit this machine, long ago — an unstable temporal shockwave, or maybe even a Blinovitch pulse. That's what caused the damage." He shook his head, wondering at the explosion that could have caused this kind of damage. "We'd have to fix those compensators, before we could use the Nightmare Ring, ourselves. Otherwise, it'd create exactly the same temporal scarring we've seen, at this base."

"You'd better hurry, then," said Seo, edging towards the door. "The Daleks will be back, any second." Her voice lowered to a whisper. "And, in case you forgot, a Time Lord in a Dalek base is a spark in a powder keg, right now!"

Narvin ran to the other side the machine, peering at it. Tracing through the intricacies of the wiring, and trying to deduce their function. "There are two components to this machine — only one of which is temporal. However, it does appear someone's wired in some new, much stronger temporal components, to augment its temporal capability."

"What?" Seo was at his side, instantly. "Really?"

Narvin pointed, and explained it to her, in more technical detail. Seo listened, and nodded.

"The strangest thing," Narvin concluded, "is that the new temporal elements aren't Dalek, and they aren't new. They were _also_ put in here a long, long time ago."

"That doesn't make sense," said Seo.

Narvin stood up straight. For a few seconds, he just stared at her. A terrible sorrow burned through him, stronger and stronger, as he watched her.

"It does," Narvin whispered. "That's the problem."

Seo tilted her head, face bent in confusion. "I don't understand."

Narvin faced the machine, again. He couldn't bear to look at her, anymore. Not now that he'd worked it out. "Go find the Doctor. I'll need him, if we're going to make our plan of wiping out the Daleks work."

Seo hesitated, a moment. "Narvin, I…"

Then she stopped.

Stepped back. And nodded.

"Yes, of course," she told him. "I obey."

And headed out of the room, shutting the door behind her.

Narvin stared at the machine. "She doesn't even know what our plan really was. I suppose that clinches it. She's… gone."

For a few seconds, he couldn't move. Couldn't think. Could only stare at that damn machine… in this damn base… letting it sink in, what the Daleks did to her.

Then, with trembling fingers, he tore another panel off the machine, and began rewiring it.

"I'm going to kill the Doctor, next time I see him," Narvin swore.

"Well, I wasn't the one who dragged you into my TARDIS," the Doctor replied, popping out of his hiding spot, in the room. He locked the door, disabled the cameras, then headed over to Narvin. "I'm sorry, you know. I never intended for this to happen."

"That's… neither here nor there," Narvin said, trying to force the emotion out of his voice. His hands kept trembling, as he disassembled and reassembled the machine. "It's clearly been much longer than two months — at least, judging by these alterations. They must have forced her to alter the machine, then killed her. Kept her replicant alive, in stasis, hoping I would turn up."

"Probably," the Doctor agreed. "The Coordinator of the CIA. That'd be a feather in the Daleks' cap."

"Too late for regrets, then," Narvin said. "Only thing left to do is…"

"Yes," the Doctor interrupted. He'd clearly already worked out what Narvin was doing to the machine — making sure it self-destructed, the moment it was activated. "Of course."

Narvin wondered if the machine, itself, had killed her, before the Daleks had had a chance.

Perhaps that was why he was so eager to destroy the thing and get it out of his life. If he could destroy this whole Dalek base, too… then so much the better.

Narvin tried to focus on the task at hand.

But after a few more connections, he slammed his fist down on the rim of the machine with a loud 'clang'.

"That insane, suicidal idiot!" Narvin shouted. "Throwing her life away for this piece of rubbish!" He punched the rim, again — ignoring the fact that it hurt. "She should never have gotten involved! Killed for the sake of someone she doesn't even know. She was supposed to wait for me! She was never supposed to go in, alone."

He kicked the device, as well.

Could barely stop himself from tearing it apart with his bare hands.

The Doctor looked on, in sympathy. "Replicant brainwaves may be loyal to the Daleks, but they're still derived from the original." He returned to his work. "What she said about sparks and powder kegs was true, you know."

Narvin said nothing.

"What… was the plan, anyways?" the Doctor asked. "It obviously wasn't killing all the Daleks — not if you're carrying around a biodata extract. So what was it?"

"Not now, Doctor," Narvin muttered, getting back to rewiring. "It was _her_ plan. It failed. Now, she's dead. The best thing we can do, under the circumstances, is destroy the monsters who did this to her."

"And she'd have approved of that?" the Doctor asked. "Blind, heedless revenge?"

Narvin actually managed a laugh at this. "Not unless she could get money out of it."

Alarms sounded in their area, and an alert blared out, "THE PRISONER HAS ESCAPED! ALERT! ALERT!"

They heard the sound of frantic pounding on the door. "Let me in!" shouted Seo. "The Daleks are right behind me! They'll exterminate me!"

"Right behind you, you say?" the Doctor called back. "Well, that much I believe, but I doubt they're chasing you. The second we open that door, they'll be right there to exterminate us."

The pounding stopped.

For a few seconds, Seo didn't speak.

"Narvin," Seo's voice came through the door, "if you ever loved me… if you ever trusted me… don't destroy that machine. Please! It's our only hope!"

"It isn't her," the Doctor reminded Narvin.

Narvin said nothing.

"Narvin!" Seo cried. "Please! Please! With pretzels and parmesan cheese!"

Narvin leapt to his feet. "That's our code phrase," he said. "She wouldn't say that, unless…!"

The Doctor grabbed him by the arm. "Everything she knew, the Dalek replicant also knows," the Doctor told him. "If you open that door, Narvin, it won't just mean our deaths. It'll mean the start of a terrible war. Would she have wanted that?"

Narvin looked at the door, sadness written across his face.

Then, slowly, turned back to his work. "No, I suppose not."

From outside the door, they heard a Dalek shout, "REPLICANT SUBTERFUGE HAS FAILED. DESTROY THIS BARRIER."

Under a blast of firepower from about ten Daleks, the door was blown clean off its hinges. The Daleks surged into the room. Seo, her face now expressionless, followed them inside — a Dalek gun in her hands.

"STEP AWAY FROM THE DEVICE," one of the Daleks demanded of Narvin.

The rest of the Daleks took one look at the Doctor, and suddenly grew agitated. "IT IS THE DOCTOR!" they cried. "IT IS THE DOCTOR! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

"No, wait!" Seo cried, leaping in between him and the Daleks.

The Doctor did a double-take.

So did the Daleks.

"YOU ARE A DALEK REPLICANT," the Daleks said. "YOU DO NOT QUESTION ORDERS."

"That's what I thought, too," the Doctor muttered. Then, to Narvin, "Your friend. What color are her eyes?"

"Brown," said Narvin. "Why?"

"The Doctor has vital Gallifreyan secrets," Seo told the Daleks, quickly. "From the CIA."

"CIA?!" the Doctor said. Who said he worked for the CIA?

"From the Time Lords," Seo corrected. "The Dalek Supreme demands full neural extraction for both these men. I obey the Dalek Supreme's orders, not yours."

The Daleks paused, for a second.

"INCORRECT," said one of the Daleks. "ONLY THE TIME LORD NARVIN IS REQUIRED FOR NEURAL EXTRACTION."

"THE DOCTOR IS AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS," the rest of the Daleks chanted. "HE MUST BE EXTERMINATED! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

"He's… he's… standing in front of the machine!" Seo shouted, over them. "Exterminate him, and you could hit it by mistake."

The Daleks fell silent.

"These two are required to repair the Nightmare Ring," Seo said. "When they have finished, they will be exterminated."

The Daleks paused, a moment.

"ONLY ONE IS REQUIRED," said one of the Daleks, sliding forwards. "THE DOCTOR WILL REMAIN ALIVE… IF YOU EXTERMINATE NARVIN."

Seo froze. "What?"

"I rather think the gig is up," the Doctor muttered to her.

"EXTERMINATE NARVIN!" the Dalek commanded. "EXTERMINATE!"

"EXTERMINATE!" the other Daleks chanted. "EXTERMINATE!"

"But… you need…" Seo began.

"OBEY!" they shouted. "OBEY!"

"But… I can't, because…" Seo tried.

"Don't bother; they've worked it out," the Doctor told her. Tilted her head towards him. "Yep. Brown eyes. Just like you said, Narvin. Replicants never get the eye color right — that's why the body in the replication chamber… had blue eyes."

"DALEK REPLICANTS DO NOT QUESTION ORDERS," said the Daleks. "DALEK REPLICANTS DO NOT PROTECT INFERIOR SPECIES. DALEK REPLICANTS OBEY. YOU ARE _NOT_ A DALEK REPLICANT!"

Seo sighed. "Fooled them for six weeks, and I blew it in a moment." She pointed her Dalek gun at the ceiling. "Oh well. Plan B."

She shot.

The shot struck the temporal stabilizer controls, and the scarring they'd noticed before suddenly surged to the forefront. The Daleks wobbled and spun around, firing in random directions, as the whole base began to churn and buckle under an intense temporal strain. A wind sprang up, pulling them all towards the scar.

The only thing that didn't move was the Nightmare Ring.

The Doctor, Narvin, and Seo all clung to it, as the storm raged around them, wind howling past their ears.

"Narvin!" Seo shouted, over the noise. "We need to get this thing onboard your TARDIS and leave. Now!"

"I don't think so," the Doctor said, buzzing at it with his sonic screwdriver. "I said I'd rescue her, Narvin. But I also said I'd never let this weapon survive. And looking at the damage it's caused, I think I've made the right choice."

"What?!" Seo cried. "But you can't…!"

Suddenly, in response to the Doctor's screwdriver and to something inside the Nightmare Ring, itself, the the wind was twisted around in a knot. Then yanked straight.

When it was, the Doctor, Narvin, and Seo found themselves thrown back, away from the Nightmare Ring. The wind tossed and turned around the machine, pulling it towards the scar, as it left everything else alone.

"Run!" the Doctor shouted, dragging the others alongside him.

They only just had time to get clear, before the Nightmare Ring reached the scar… and exploded.

"EXTERMINATE THE TIME LORDS!" said the Daleks, now back to normal. "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

"Oh, you two have royally screwed this up, now!" Seo snapped. She yanked down a hidden lever on the wall. "Just be thankful that I disabled their communications with Dalek Command, or you'd have been at war ten minutes ago."

The self-destruct siren blared through the base.

"They can't deactivate it," Seo shouted, over it. "I changed the deactivation codes and threw in a few of my own tricks. They'll think they're getting close, stay behind with full conviction that they can crack it… and… boom!" She began to run. "So let's not make their mistake!"

They ran.

Narvin, still a little in shock, sprinted up beside Seo, double-checking. "So. You survived, then?"

"By the skin of my teeth," Seo admitted. "When they caught me and figured out what I was, they thought they'd hit pay dirt. By the time they found out I was useless, they'd discovered my connection to you — and reclassified me as 'bait'."

"They couldn't use your…?" Narvin checked.

"I'm damaged goods," Seo said, with a shrug. "What can I say? I've proved it at least seven times, so far." She raised up her right hand. "It's just a hand, now. That's all."

"IT IS THE PRISONER AND THE TIME LORDS!" shouted a Dalek, emerging down the corridor, in front of them. "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

They ducked the extermination ray, and ran the other way, taking an alternate route up.

"The Daleks dragged me in, to be replicated," said Seo. "They said something about doubling my replicant's psychic potential. I had no idea what that was all about. All I know is — I got lucky. I woke up before my duplicate, broke free, and switched places with her." Her face grew long and sad. "Then they came in and just… shot her. She was barely a minute old. She didn't even know what was going on." She shook her head. "I felt so… helpless."

The base trembled under the strain of the Nightmare Ring explosion, which had weakened its foundation. The self-destruct alarm continued to blare, in the background.

"Take note, Narvin," Seo added, elbowing him in the ribs. "This is called 'sorrow and regret'. It's one of those human things that Time Lords don't seem to understand. Like 'libido'. Or 'not ditching your girlfriend without even saying goodbye, in order to get a job promotion back on Gallifrey'."

"Definitely you, then," Narvin muttered. A little louder, "I told you why I left you. It was either Gallifrey or you, and I made my choice. You said you forgave me."

"I did — eventually," Seo said. She glanced at the Doctor. "Speaking of Gallifrey, who's this guy? When I called him CIA, he gave me the death-glare to end all death-glares."

"You don't know who I am?" the Doctor asked. "You knew my name."

Seo laughed. "Well, yeah. The moment you landed, the Daleks started shouting, 'ALERT! ALERT! IT IS THE DOCTOR!' That was a pretty big clue." She looked over at Narvin. "The Daleks get very jumpy about him. Is he a pacifist?"

"No," said Narvin.

The Doctor did a double-take. "I'm sorry?"

The base shook, and the ceiling came hurtling down, around them. They sprinted past the falling rubble, and could see the exit.

"All right, yes, he considers himself to be," Narvin corrected himself. "But, technically, he's a Time Lord. A renegade, as a matter of fact. And somewhat notorious, back on Gallifrey."

Seo didn't seem impressed. "From what I hear, it doesn't take much to be notorious on Gallifrey," she said. "But… still, I take your point."

They finally made it to the exit, and raced outside. Narvin sealed the door shut, and relocked it — using a different sequence. They could hear the Daleks, on the other side, approaching the door and attempting to unlock it, in time.

The Daleks were still insisting they exterminate the Doctor — even as they took their final breaths.

"The Daleks seem to think he's trouble, anyways," Seo added.

"Their number one enemy, so I hear," Narvin added, as he finished securing the base door.

Seo quirked an eyebrow. "So definitely not a pacifist, then," she muttered, as Narvin raced by and grabbed her by the hand, dragging her after him.

All three of them ran as fast as they could.

Behind them, the whole base exploded, showering the air around them with debris and metal. The trio dove for cover, sheltering from the blast.

"Listen… Seo, is it?" the Doctor said, turning to her. "I try to be a man of peace. I try to help where I can. But sometimes, the Daleks do something so despicable, so evil and cruel and heartless, that I _have_ to stop them. That's when I fight."

"She'll have to take your word on that," said Narvin, crawling out of the shelter. He offered Seo a hand to her feet, and she took it.

"And I'll have to take yours," Seo replied to Narvin, with a grin.

He met her grin with his own.

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Yes, well, if you two are finished grinning at each other," he said, "I'd like to get back on my way. I do hope you have some way of leaving this pocket of space-time, Narvin, as well as entering it."

"After you destroyed my last temporal tunnel, you mean?" Narvin sighed. "Yes. I do."

Seo stopped them both. "I've got to stage-set my ship, first," she said. "Dalek Command's going to need someone to blame for this, and there's no way I'm letting them find out there were Time Lords here. If I stage this right, they'll think the base's destruction was all down to me — and me, alone."

And, with that, she ran off.

Narvin gritted his teeth, in frustration. "I can't believe her, sometimes." He chased after her. "Seo! Don't you dare make the Daleks hunt you down across time and space!"

"Says the man whose people are funding the mass production of weaponized chronons, causing a wave of intergalactic terrorism!" Seo replied, over her shoulder. "Do you have any idea how many people those Visconti Brothers killed, back on Earth?!"

The Doctor looked after them, trying to decide if it'd be too obnoxious to simply leave them here and continue on his way. Gallifrey would, after all, find some way to get Narvin out of here, no matter what.

The Doctor put his hands into his pockets.

Sighed.

And headed back to his TARDIS. "But there's still a mystery to be solved," he said. "And I can't just leave, without cracking it, or I'd never be able to live with myself." He kicked a pebble across the lifeless surface of the planet. "What, exactly, were these two planning, with the Nightmare Ring — that they don't want Gallifrey knowing about? Why a biodata extract? And… whose extract was it?"


	5. Chapter 5

Three minutes later, Seo and Narvin returned to the Doctor's TARDIS.

"Took you two long enough," said the Doctor, leaning over the central console. "The Dalek Supreme will, no doubt, have been alerted the moment the base was destroyed. If we'd stayed any longer, he'd have arrived and we'd all be dead."

He pulled down the dematerialization lever.

"Spacial coordinates have to be exactly zero-zero by zero-two at steady acceleration," Narvin said, running over to the console and helping the Doctor pinpoint the tunnel out of there. "And no more tricks with black holes, if you don't mind."

Seo ran up to the central console. "What can I do to help?"

"Hold down that lever, until I say," the Doctor said, pointing. "Then press the three buttons beside it."

Seo, a little uneasily, glanced at Narvin.

"Yeah… don't do that," Narvin said. He gestured at the monitor on the console. "Solve the relative time equations for each of the coordinate settings we put in — verbally. That'll allow us to resolve the time vector parameters." He paused. "Oh, and it goes without saying, but don't touch the…"

"I know," Seo muttered, getting to work.

"Equations? She's intelligent, then?" the Doctor asked Narvin.

"And terribly bossy," Narvin agreed. "Inputting coordinate settings, now."

He and the Doctor rushed around the console, hands spinning around dials and pushing buttons and pulling levers, as Seo solved the equations and the others used her answers to program in the next set. In a flurry of movement and mathematics, they flew the TARDIS through Narvin's bending temporal tunnel, and out into normal space.

Once they arrived in normal space, they all breathed a sigh of relief.

Then, the Doctor threw on the hand brake.

And refused to let it go.

"All right, Narvin," said the Doctor. "Your friend is safe and the base is destroyed. So I think you owe me an explanation."

"In a minute," Seo said. She turned to Narvin. "What do we do, now? The Doctor destroyed the Nightmare Ring!"

"I'm not entirely certain your Nightmare Ring idea would have worked, in the first place," Narvin told her. "Like I said. The Nightmare Ring wasn't set up to do what you thought."

"But I saw what it did to the Olitzitz!" Seo insisted. "I was there, Narvin! It must still…!"

"Silence!" the Doctor shouted, over them both.

They went silent.

"Better," the Doctor said. "Now. Would one of you two tell me what was going on in that base, what you were trying to use the Nightmare Ring to do — and why you, Narvin, lied to me and told me that my friend was about to die?"

Seo frowned. Then, to Narvin, "He's her friend? Really?" A spark appeared in her eyes. "Oh. So _that's_ why you brought him along!"

"Actually, no," Narvin replied. "I brought him along so he could take you away."

Seo stared at him. Dumbfounded. "Away?"

"The Doctor has something of a reputation, on Gallifrey, for evading the Time Lords," said Narvin. "I have full faith that he'll find a safe place for you to hide, until this is all over."

Seo shook her head. "I'm not hiding," she insisted. "She's dying, Narvin. I want to help."

"The best way you can help is by leaving," Narvin said. "And by not asking too many questions."

Seo put her hands on her hips. "And that's all you think I should do? Run away and forget this whole mess?" She shook her head. "My father did that. He's dead, now. Billions of people are dead. All because he ran away and buried his head in the sand!"

"Seo, with all due respect, your father wasn't a Time Lord," Narvin snapped. "I am. So that's the end of it. I can take care of this — but first, you have to leave."

Seo threw her arms up in the air. "Oh, you Time Lords and your egos!"

"All right, you two, calm down," the Doctor interrupted.

Seo turned on him, shoving a finger in his face. "And you can keep out of this," she said. "I mean… just who are you, anyways? A renegade? 'The Doctor'? That's not a name, it's a title — and I've learned, from bitter experience, never to trust men without names."

"Names and titles work differently on Gallifrey than Earth," Narvin sighed.

The Doctor looked her over, his mind awhirl. Ah, this was starting to make sense. Judging by her temporal knowledge, experience with Gallifrey, the fact that she used a ship instead of a vortex manipulator…

"Yes, yes, of course!" the Doctor cried. "Earth. Early in your time travel days — before you invented temporal teleportation."

"The Universalist Era," Seo said, in a deadpan.

"There's something called the Genocide Law," the Doctor said. "Well, it covers more than genocide… but that's the name you use. As I recall, it says that anyone engaged in a certain level of criminal activity can be erased from the timelines." He flitted his hand through the air. "Whoosh! Like you never existed."

Seo didn't look amused.

"Thing is, there's a legal loophole," said the Doctor. "To erase someone, the judge must issue a Writ of Erasure. And that writ must include a person's full, legal birth-name."

"Believe it or not, I'm familiar with the temporal laws of Earthspace, Doctor," Seo said. "Considering I live there."

"So, all the most dangerous criminals hide both their names and their pasts," said the Doctor. "Hence, your suspicion of men with no names." He leapt over to the TARDIS databanks. "Let's see, now. Seo… Seo… not a usual Earth name, in your time. Is it?"

Seo suddenly looked uneasy. "What are you implying?" She saw him looking up her name. "Hey, don't do that!"

She tried to pull him away, but he shrugged her off.

"Aha!" said the Doctor. He read off the screen. "'A common nickname on the planet Irigova, short for Seosyrae — messenger of light.'" He paused. Then looked up at her. "Interesting. Seosyrae. We have a similar name on Gallifrey."

"That's not a coincidence," Narvin muttered.

The Doctor should have guessed. "More CIA intervention?" he said to Narvin. "Into Irigova's early history?"

Narvin didn't have to say anything.

The Doctor turned back to Seo. "So. Irigova. Except… you don't look Irigovan. They're all majestic, bird-like creatures — and you are definitely humanoid." He grinned. "So, I'm guessing 'Seo' isn't your real name, now. Is it?" He lowered his voice. "Unpleasant past, Narvin said. Just what are you hiding, Seo?"

"Doctor, this isn't helping in the slightest!" Narvin interrupted. He turned to Seo, who was still glaring at the Doctor. "Seo, look at me."

Seo tore her eyes away from the Doctor. Instead, looked up at Narvin. Her face, almost subconsciously, relaxed a little.

"He's a troublemaker, and he likes to play the moral superiority card like nobody's business," Narvin told her. "But I promise, he _will_ hide you somewhere safe. Please. If you've ever trusted me, just go with him and get away from the Time Lords."

"Why?" Seo asked. "Why are you so determined to get me away?"

"I can't tell you that," Narvin admitted. His face was filled with genuine fear and affection. "I can't answer your questions. I'm sorry. All I can say is… for your sake, Seo… you must hide. Please. I'm begging you."

Seo smiled at Narvin. "You can be so sweet, sometimes." She took his hands in hers, and looked into his eyes. "You're the only Time Lord I ever trusted. And once, I trusted you so completely, I'd do something like this without question. But then, one day, you ditched me for Gallifrey."

"And you forgave me," Narvin reminded her.

"And I forgave you," Seo admitted. "Eventually." She pat his hand, and let it go. "But it's never going to be like that, again, between us. If you don't tell me something, I can't just take it on trust."

"Seo, please, don't ask too many questions," Narvin warned. "It's dangerous."

"So you say," Seo replied. "But why? How is it dangerous?"

The whole TARDIS shook, as something slammed right into them. Everyone inside stumbled, grabbing onto each other or the central console and struggling to remain on their feet.

"Daleks?" Seo guessed.

The Doctor glanced at the scanner screen. "Ah, look at that, Narvin. Your entourage has arrived!" Under his breath, added, "And, hopefully, will be far more willing to answer some questions."

Seo's eyes went wide.

She darted over to the scanner. "Time Lords."

"Not just any Time Lords," Narvin said. He pointed at one of the TARDISes. "That's _her_ , out there. I can only imagine Cardinal Ollistra's given her a vivid account of your recent activities. Still so keen to get involved?"

"You have to get me out of here," Seo whispered.

"Finally, a glimmer of intelligence," Narvin muttered. "Serves me right for falling in love with a suicidal idiot."

"You really know how to flatter a girl," Seo replied, turning on him. "Now, get me out of here — before your people disintegrate me for sabotaging their war effort."

But the Doctor was still holding down the handbrake. And he wasn't about to budge.

"My TARDIS, my rules," the Doctor told them. "Until you two tell me what's going on, I'm not letting this TARDIS move an inch."

Narvin, frustrated, threw up his hands in the air. "Not now!"

"We don't have time for this!" Seo insisted. "Doctor, if she really is your friend, then your only chance of saving her is to let go of that handbrake."

"You keep talking about my friend!" the Doctor roared. "What friend? Who do you mean?"

"Who do you think we mean? The next American Idol?" Seo said. To Narvin, "Does he really not know?"

Narvin quieted her. "Doctor," he said. "Romana is dying."

The Doctor stared at him.

"Really, dying. No regeneration possible," Narvin said. "I'm… sorry."

"How?" the Doctor demanded. "What happened?"

"Nobody knows," Narvin admitted. "Not even the Matrix knows. One day it just… started happening."

The Doctor wasn't sure what to say.

"But… but… there must be something you can do!" the Doctor insisted. "There has to be some way…!"

"There is," Narvin insisted. "But first, you have to let go of that handbrake!"

"Too late," said Seo, pointing at the scanner screen.

They only had time to look over at the scanner, before a temporal torpedo collided with the outer hull of the TARDIS. And knocked all three of them unconscious.

* * *

Back at the ruins of the Dalek base, a new Dalek ship landed. Soon, Daleks were swarming the wreckage, trying to work out what had happened.

"TIME SHIP DETECTED," reported one Dalek, approaching the remains of Seo's abandoned ship. "INVESTIGATING…"

Before he could get close, however, the secret booby trap that Narvin had planted, there — without Seo's knowledge — was tripped. And the ship exploded.

"REPORT!" demanded one of the other Daleks.

"TIME VESSEL DESTROYED," reported the first Dalek. He drifted forwards, plunger extended, scanning the debris for clues. "SUSPECTED ORIGIN OF TIME VESSEL: EARTH."

"AFFIRMATIVE," came the report from one of the other Daleks, deeper within the wreckage of the base. "REMAINING DATA IN BASE INDICATES INCURSION BY HUMANOID FEMALE, ORIGIN: EARTH. NO OTHER INTRUSION DETECTED."

The Dalek investigating Seo's ship sifted through the debris, trying to find any clues left behind. With a little clever sifting and sorting, he managed to locate the remains of the ship's data core, and hacked in, easily. While most of the data was lost, the data cluster with information on the humanoid female's identity and physical appearance appeared to be intact.

"DOWNLOADING DATA ON HUMAN FEMALE," the Dalek by the ship informed his colleagues. When the data came through, the Dalek moved away. Disappointed.

"DATA CORRUPTED," said the Dalek.

And for a while, that seemed to be the end of it.

Until one Dalek, further in the base, noticed a little alert sensor that no one — not Seo, not the Doctor, not even Narvin — had noticed, before. And the Dalek suddenly grew very excited.

"INFORM DALEK COMMAND," it shouted, "THE ALERT HAS BEEN TRIGGERED. PROJECT OLITZITZ CAN PROCEED. THE VITAL COMPONENT IS ALIVE."


	6. Chapter 6

_Long ago… back in the fairytale, before the monsters had come to take the little girl away…_

_The magician had just tucked the little girl into bed, and walked downstairs. He paused, on the bottom-most step._

_A strange man was now loitering in the living room, picking up and examining trinkets, nearby, waiting for the magician to arrive._

_"_ _You, again," the magician said. He stepped down the final step. "It's been months. I thought you'd forgotten about us." He strode over to the strange man, grabbed the trinket out of his hand, and thudded it back on the mantelpiece. "What do you want?"_

_"_ _Only what we agreed," said the strange man, turning on the magician. "I've upheld my side of the bargain. Now… I want what's due to me."_

_"_ _What, exactly?" the magician asked. "You've never said."_

_"_ _Your daughter."_

_The magician's words died in his throat._

_"_ _Don't tell me you intend to go back on your promise?" the strange man said. His eyes were cruel — dark and menacing. "You said you'd give me anything. Anything at all."_

_"_ _But not her!" said the magician. He thumped his own chest. "Take me, instead! Anything else I own! But not her. Please, not her."_

_The strange man laughed — a laughter that bit into the magician's skin like winter frost._

_"_ _Thing is… I don't want you," the strange man said. "Or any of your baubles or trinkets. The only thing I want is her."_

_"_ _Why?" the magician demanded. "What could you possibly need her for, that you couldn't use me for, instead?!"_

_The strange man leaned forwards._

_And whispered the answer in the magician's ear._

_The magician stepped back. "No. Never."_

_"_ _Oh, come now," said the strange man. "I can see it in your eyes. You hate the Time Lords. You told me…"_

_"_ _I know what I said!" the magician interrupted. "But I never meant to involve her in any of this. That's why I asked for your help, in the first place. She's just a child!"_

_"_ _I can wait for her to grow up," said the strange man. He crossed his arms. "I'm in no hurry."_

_"_ _The answer is still no," said the magician. "I will not turn my daughter into a murderer. Not now. Not in the future. Not ever."_

_"_ _I kept my side of the bargain, Varbanthos," the strange man reminded him, sternly. "You will give me what I want. You don't have a choice."_

_The magician turned away, pacing the room, his head in his hands — trying to think up some way out of this._

_"_ _You can't escape me," the strange man said. "You know who I am. You know the power I wield."_

_The magician said nothing for a long time._

_Then, he stopped his pacing._

_"_ _One," the magician finally said, turning back to the strange man. "I'll get her to destroy just one Time Lord — the most important one. Then… my daughter will be free, and our agreement will be at an end."_

_The strange man didn't look pleased. "Which one?"_

_The magician told him._

_The strange man considered._

_"_ _With this one death, it'd be easy to collapse the Time Lords' society and carry out the rest of your plan," said the magician. "The domino effect would do most of the work for you. I'm giving you what you want."_

_"_ _This isn't what I want," the strange man said. "I want your daughter. Full stop."_

_The magician folded his arms across his chest. "It's either this, or nothing," he said. "Your choice."_

_The strange man scowled._

_But gave in._

_"_ _If that is all you will give me, I will take it," the strange man said. His voice lowered, and his eyes filled with anger and menace. "But you have cheated me, Varbanthos. And that means you have forfeited my protection."_

_The magician said nothing. He stood his ground._

_"_ _One day, your past mistakes will come back to haunt you," the strange man promised. "One day, you'll lose your daughter, forever — but I won't be the one to take her from you."_

_"_ _You don't mean…?"_

_"_ _I would have treated her kindly," the strange man said. "They will not. Remember that, on the day you lose everything."_

_Then, the strange man vanished into thin air._

* * *

The first thing the Doctor saw, when he came to, was a brown haired, blue eyed woman wearing a gigantic hat and huge collar. "I knew he'd come round, first." She smiled at him. "Hello, Doctor."

The Doctor sat up, suddenly.

"Romana!" he cried. Looked her up and down. "New body?"

"Oh, yes," Romana agreed. She glanced down at herself, taking stock. "Not terribly old, but I rather like it. I won't ask you what you think; I remember the fuss you made, last time."

Then, from nowhere, Romana's face went pale, and she cringed, doubling over. The Doctor reached out, to steady her, but she batted his hand away.

"I'll be fine, in a moment," she assured him.

She took a deep breath. Then steadied herself, and stood upright. Fine, again.

"I do hate it when that happens," Romana admitted. "It's as if someone is walking over my grave."

"You're unwell," the Doctor said, getting to his feet.

Romana gave a wry laugh. "Unwell? No. I'm dying, Doctor. Every time it happens, it feels as though someone is ripping my past away from me. We're still trying to establish the cause." She nodded at Narvin, still unconscious. "The Coordinator is terribly concerned."

" _I_ am concerned," the Doctor insisted. "Romana, there must be something I can do!"

"I'm sure you'll try, Doctor." Romana turned, and headed towards the crowd of Time Lords surrounding Narvin and Seo at the other end of the console room. "In the meantime, I still have my duty. And that duty is never more required than with a case of high treason."

The Doctor frowned. High treason?! Just what had he gotten himself into?

Romana approached a Time Lord who was scanning Seo with a bio-scanner. "Results, Agent Jodelex?"

"It seems Sil of Thoros Beta was telling the truth, Lady President," said Jodelex, handing Romana the scanner. "She _is_ one of the Ancient Enemy."

The Doctor blinked. "She's a vampire?"

He had to admit, he hadn't see that one coming. She'd seemed perfectly fine out in the sunlight, back on Priberal. And…

No, wait. He'd overlooked something important, here.

"Sil?!" the Doctor cried. "What was she doing with Sil?"

"Robbing him, apparently," said Romana. She tapped the scanner display, as she looked over the findings. "Interesting." She handed the scanner to the Doctor. "Your thoughts?"

The Doctor took it from her and examined the display.

"Interesting is right," he muttered, skimming through the data. "No wonder I didn't notice she was a vampire. Her vampiric mutation's been… corrupted."

"My thoughts, precisely," Romana confirmed. "Whatever species she was, originally, must have had such an unusual genetic structure that the mutation couldn't properly take hold. She has, quite by accident, retained a certain amount of her original DNA."

Agent Jodelex nodded. "If I may ask, Lady President, what species was she, originally?"

"I can't tell," Romana admitted. "Doctor?"

"Hm?" The Doctor looked up from the scanner. "Ah. Not sure. At least, not yet. Or… well… possibly, not ever." He looked down at the scanner, again. "The mutation may not have overwritten all the original genetics, but it _has_ scrambled them, substantially. I doubt there's any way to tell what she started out as."

He handed Romana back the scanner.

Then, in a whisper, added, "Romana, what is this really about?"

"Simply gathering information, Doctor," said Romana. She nodded at Seo. "That woman, alias 'Seosyrae', has, for some time, now, been bankrupting any business selling weaponized temporal materials to Gallifrey. Sabotaging the buildup of our arsenal."

"Has she, really?" The Doctor beamed. "I think I've gained a newfound respect for her."

"I expected you'd say that," Romana replied. "Cardinal Ollistra believes Seosyrae is a Dalek agent."

"Rubbish!" the Doctor said.

"I, on the other hand, thought there might be something more to this," said Romana. She gestured at Narvin. "Particularly when I heard the Coordinator was involved. If Seosyrae is an agent of the Daleks, that makes Narvin a traitor — and I know that cannot be true." She approached the unconscious Narvin. "Has he told you anything, Doctor?"

A number of Time Lords had already surrounded Narvin, and were in the process of restraining him.

"Not much," the Doctor replied. He sighed — because he still hadn't worked this whole thing out, and it really bugged him. "I know he was after a weapon…"

"The Nightmare Ring," Romana agreed.

"You've heard of it, then?" the Doctor asked. "And of this 'Olitzitz' race, that created it?"

"Olitzitz? No," Romana said. She noticed that Narvin was beginning to wake. "I hadn't. Neither had the Matrix."

The Doctor blinked. "What, really?"

"Really," Romana agreed. "And, truth be told, all I know about the Nightmare Ring is that it's a weapon, and Narvin wants it. I suppose you blew it up?"

"Naturally."

"I expected nothing less." Romana stepped forwards, as Narvin groaned and blinked. "Coordinator Narvin," she addressed him. "It's rather out of character for you to aid and abet a wanted criminal, isn't it? Which makes the fact that you've been doing it for five centuries… surprising. Wouldn't you agree?"

Narvin, for a moment, froze and took in his surroundings. Remembered where he was, and why. And looked out, nervously, at the various Time Lords now pointing stasers at him.

"Lady President," Narvin said. "I assure you, this has all been a misunderstanding."

"Has it?" Romana pointed at the still-unconscious Seo. "Then you _haven't_ been conspiring with the woman who has roamed all of time and space, stopping us from acquiring weapons-grade chronons?"

"I…"

"And you _haven't_ been constructing rather elaborate computer programs on Gallifrey, for the past five centuries, and installing a temporal firewall inside the Matrix, so you could wipe out or conceal all information about her identity and her past?" Romana continued. "You _haven't_ been meeting with her, in secret, when you thought we weren't looking?"

"Ah." Narvin swallowed, hard. "I'll admit, the evidence seems rather stacked against me." He lowered his voice, and whispered, "Romana, you know I'm no traitor."

"As Romana, I know that," Romana replied. "As your Lady President, that has yet to be determined."

"Oh, for pity's sake, Romana," the Doctor said, charging towards them. He swung an arm around Romana's shoulders, and pointed at Narvin. "Can't you see? He's not helping her as any part of your war. He's in love with her!"

Everyone in the TARDIS fell into a stunned silence.

"Thank you, Doctor," Narvin hissed through his teeth. "I wasn't planning to mention that." A little louder, he told the other Time Lords, "My relationship with her was nothing more than a… youthful indiscretion. It ended centuries ago."

"Five centuries ago, by any chance?" the Doctor guessed. "The same amount of time that you've been covering up for her?"

Narvin said nothing.

"Imagine the scandal!" the Doctor continued. "The Coordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency, in love with an alien — a vampire, no less. No wonder he's been so secretive."

"You can stop talking any time, now, Doctor," Narvin hissed, glaring at him. He turned to Romana. Cleared his throat. "Lady President. I promise, there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all I've done — but I'd rather we spoke in private." With another glare at the Doctor, added, "Without _him_."

"Very well," said Romana. She turned to the others. "Commander Turnis, bring the thief Seosyrae onboard my TARDIS, where she will be transported to…"

"That may not be wise," Narvin cut in. "Seo left her ship on Priberal, to make sure the Dalek Supreme would blame _her_ for the base's destruction. Bringing her to Gallifrey simply establishes a connection between her and the Time Lords. It could begin a war."

"We're bringing her to Gallifrey as a prisoner," Commander Turnis replied, "not a friend."

"Yes, but the Daleks won't know that," Romana realized. "They may believe we're staging an elaborate rescue operation for a covert spy." She sighed, thinking this through, furiously. Then cringed, doubling over in pain.

The Doctor caught her.

"Lady President?" said Commander Turnis, running over to help.

"I'm fine, Commander," Romana said, as the Doctor helped her to recover. She looked into the Doctor's face — a sudden idea coming to her. "Yes. In fact, I think I'm rather better for it."

She spun back to Narvin.

"All right, Coordinator," Romana decided. "I won't bring her back to Gallifrey. But I won't place her in the custody of whomever you were about to suggest — presumably, someone you know would let her go immediately." She gestured at the area around her. "She'll be staying right here. In the Doctor's custody."

"What?!" cried the Doctor.

"What?!" cried the other Time Lords.

"Oh, yes," Romana said. She grinned at them all. "Because if there's one person I can trust to get to the bottom of whatever the Coordinator is up to… it's the Doctor."

Which was nerve wracking. Because the Doctor knew that Narvin had _wanted_ the Doctor to look after Seo, right from the start. And here Romana was, playing right into Narvin's hand.

Just how much of this had Narvin planned out, ahead of time?

"Romana…" the Doctor whispered.

"Don't act so appalled, Doctor," Romana said. "I know you better than that. You want a chance to unravel the mystery. And, as it happens, that's precisely what I want, as well."

Commander Turnis was less enthusiastic. "Lady President… the Doctor's a renegade. He'll probably let her escape."

"And if he does, then I trust he'll have done so for the right reasons," Romana said. "You know, as well as I, that the Doctor would never betray his conscience."

Agent Jodelex cleared his throat. "Lady President, there is one other problem. See, while no records exist on Seosyrae, in the Matrix or other popular Time Lord databases, there _are_ a few scant records at the CIA."

Romana crossed her arms. "Is that so?"

"And it seems," Agent Jodelex continued, "Seosyrae has something of a reputation, around TARDISes."

Commander Turnis huffed _._ "Stealing them?"

"No — destroying them," Agent Jodelex corrected.

Everyone else in the TARDIS fell silent.

" _Destroying_ them?" Romana clarified.

"Yes, Lady President," Agent Jodelex said. "Five, so far."

"Seven," Seo corrected, without opening her eyes.

They all turned to her.

"You probably haven't found the last two, yet," Seo said, slowly opening her eyes. "Ask nicely, and I'll point you in the right direction."

Agent Jodelex took a deep breath. "Seven," he corrected. "All technology stripped, and the TARDIS left drifting, dead, and ready for the scrap heap."

"Okay, I'll admit it — I am a TARDIS killer," Seo said. "But I had a very good reason, every time."

"She's clearly been stripping the Gallifreyan technology and selling it off on the black market," said Commander Turnis. "I'm sure she makes a healthy profit."

Seo tilted her head to one side, considering. "Actually, that would have been a better reason. Oh, well." She shrugged. "Maybe next time."

Narvin groaned. He clearly couldn't quite believe she was goading them like this.

Romana placed a hand on the Doctor's central console. "It's not a problem. I'm sure the Doctor is more than capable of protecting his TARDIS."

"But Lady President!" Agent Jodelex insisted. "We can't give someone like her access to a TARDIS! We can't run the risk that our time technology will fall into the hands of _any_ of the lesser races — much less into the hands of Narvin's little pet."

Seo leapt at Agent Jodelex, in a flash of fury — but the Time Lords yanked her back, before she got close.

"Pet, am I?" Seo shouted, trying to swing at him — but the others kept a too-tight grip on her arms. "Just some harmless little puppy?!"

"Agent, I'd stay well back, if I were you," Narvin advised Jodelex. "You've hit on… rather a sore point."

"You Time Lords are all a bunch of pompous, self-deluded jackasses!" Seo snapped. "Listen to yourselves! Lesser races. Inferior species. No wonder you're going to war with the Daleks — you both sound exactly the same!" She fumed. "And as for your temporal monopoly… who are _you_ to rule over time?! Who are _you_ to insist that Gallifrey's interests are the same as the interests of the rest of the universe?!"

"Now she's talking like a member of that terrorist organization, Free Time," Commander Turnis said.

"Terrorists?" Seo shouted. "You want to talk to me about terrorists? Fine! Let's talk terrorists. The Visconti Brothers wiped 200 people out of history, back on Earth. And, before that, Acarti extremists erased 350 people and nearly created a temporal fault line across the 1960's! And that's just two examples. We've had twenty temporal terror strikes, on Earth, in the last month — _twenty_! All made possible because _you_ Time Lords have been supporting maniacs like Sil!" She bunched her hands into fists. "Don't you get it?! Your Time War hasn't even started, yet, and you're _already_ screwing up the universe!" She tried to run forwards, again, but was still held back. "Sometimes, I wonder if things wouldn't be better without Gallifrey or the Time Lords. And yes, Narvin, that means you, too. Gone! Vamoosed! Exterminated!"

The rest of the Time Lords grew incensed and enraged.

The Doctor kept his calm. "She's taking the fall for him," the Doctor whispered to Romana. "Look at her. She doesn't _really_ want to wipe out Gallifrey. She wants to make it look like she was using Narvin — so you'll let him go."

"Lady President," Narvin said, not hearing them, "Seo's upset. She's not thinking about what she's saying."

"Oh, yes, I am!" Seo insisted. "You're a pawn, Narvin. Do you really think I'd launch a one-woman attack on Gallifrey, without first getting the Coordinator of the CIA on my side? You may have thought you were helping Gallifrey, but it was a ruse! All of it!"

"Silence!" Romana shouted, above them.

Everyone went silent.

"I've made my decision, already," Romana told them all. "Until such time as we can confirm or deny Seosyrae's latest allegations, she will remain in the Doctor's custody. In the meantime, Narvin will be taken to Gallifrey to stand trial for high treason. That is final." She signaled to Commander Turnis. "Commander. Take the Coordinator away."

"At once, Lady President," said Commander Turnis.

He signaled to the others, and they all dragged Narvin from the Doctor's TARDIS, and into Romana's.

As he left, Narvin shot the Doctor a meaningful look. A look that promised anything that Narvin had to give, if the Doctor would save Seo.

Then… he was gone.

Romana rounded on Seo. "And as for you…" She surprised everyone, by giving Seo a sad smile. "I understand. Truly, I do. You care for Narvin a great deal, and you'd be perfectly happy to accept a harsher sentence, if that would secure his release." She stepped forwards. "But I know that Narvin is no traitor. The only person who's in danger, at the moment, is you. Do try to remember that."

Romana stepped away. Called off her guards, who released Seo and flanked Romana. Then she turned back to the Doctor.

"Look after her, for me," Romana told him. "I know you'll do the right thing."

"I promise, Romana," the Doctor swore, "I'll find some way to save you."

Romana and her retinue headed towards the doors. "I don't doubt it," she said, as she left.


	7. Chapter 7

 

For a long time, after the other Time Lords left, the TARDIS remained silent.

Seo didn't move. Couldn't. Just stood where she'd previously been restrained — now free… but with nowhere to go.

She stared at the door, where Narvin had disappeared.

The Doctor, meanwhile, was working at his central console. Adjusting settings, to make sure Seo wouldn't destroy or steal his TARDIS.

"You know, you made a good point, back there," the Doctor said, at long last. "We are a rather stuffy, arrogant bunch. Always putting Gallifrey's interests ahead of the universe's. I've put a stop to that nonsense, once or twice, myself." He flicked another switch, waiting for a reply. When she didn't offer one, he added, "I'm sorry they called you a 'pet.' That was uncalled for."

Still, no answer.

"You're worried about Narvin, aren't you?" the Doctor asked, looking up at her.

Seo dropped her eyes from the outer doors. "It really _isn't_ his fault, you know. It's mine."

"What's your fault?" the Doctor asked.

"The thefts; the sabotage," Seo said. She leapt over to the central console. " _I_ was the one who bankrupted those suppliers. He had nothing to do with it." She reached out, to lean over the console and make her point. "In fact, he tried to stop…"

She shrieked, as her hands made contact with the central console, and a spark of electricity ran through her.

She leapt back.

"Mild electric shock," the Doctor explained. "I heard what they said. I'm not letting you fly off with my TARDIS."

"I don't 'fly off' with them," Seo insisted, shaking out her hands. "I just steal their technology."

"After you destroy them," the Doctor said.

She brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen across her face. "I had a very good reason, every time."

"Which was…?" the Doctor prompted.

Seo said nothing.

The Doctor sighed. "Romana's right, you know. You have nothing to lose from telling me the truth. Narvin will be fine, whatever you say."

"What else is there to say?" Seo asked. "Gallifrey's building up an arsenal. I've been sabotaging that arsenal. Deliberately." She held out her hands. "Go ahead. Clap me in irons."

"You've been shutting down the nastier weapons suppliers, haven't you? The ones using the money they get from Gallifrey to fund terrorism and supply evil races like the Cybermen and Sontarans?" The Doctor grinned. "Yes. I've been wondering where those suppliers went. I was planning a little sabotage, myself — but it looks like you beat me to it."

Seo shot him a strange look.

And lowered her hands.

"I hear you got Sil," the Doctor said. "An old enemy of mine! What was he doing? Torture? Slavery? Exploitation?"

"He was… yes, all those things," Seo said. She paused. "And… stealing art and valuables from the planets the Daleks were about to destroy, without caring about the population." She shrugged. "I even said I was going to eat the populations — and he was fine with it."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "You didn't, did you?"

"I'm a thief, not a psychopath," Seo snapped at him. She sighed. "No, they were evacuated. Of course they were. I mean… what a waste — to know where the Daleks will strike, and save some _paintings_?" She shrugged. "But… I guess the paintings are worth more, when the whole planet gets destroyed."

"Appalling," the Doctor said. "You know, the first time I met Sil, he was exploiting Zeiton-7 on Varos, amusing himself with torture camps and death pits. And the second time, he was helping the Ice Warriors turn Magnus into a frozen wilderness, so he could sell sweaters."

Seo gave a disgusted sigh. "The jerk. I heard he worked with… what's his name? Ulgod the Caped, on Thoros Gamma."

"Ulgod!" the Doctor cried. "Yes, I remember him! He was the one turning a profit off that fake charity."

"And the one who ran that auction house for black market Supernova Bombs," Seo said. Shuddered. "Terrifying."

"Have you gotten Garundel, yet?" the Doctor asked. "Dreadful man."

"Oh, awful!" Seo agreed, making a face. "You know, he actually bragged to me about gun-running to the neo-neo-Natzis on Ursus Major! Really! Not to mention that the Time War Suppliers Cartel was all _his_ idea…"

The Doctor did a double take. "The what cartel?"

Seo paused. Suddenly realized that she'd been opening up to him — and decided it was a mistake.

"Nothing," she said. She folded her arms over the back of one of the armchairs in the console room. "Never mind."

Darn. He'd been that close to making a connection with her.

Now, she'd shut herself off, again.

"You're not a fan of this Time War?" the Doctor asked. "Neither am I, as it happens."

Silence.

"I've told them, I want no part in it," the Doctor continued.

Still, silence.

"You _can_ trust me, you know," the Doctor told her. "I'm not exactly Gallifrey's golden boy. You and I may have more in common than you think."

Seo still, rather stubbornly, said nothing.

"All right, what was it?" the Doctor demanded, irritated. "Narvin slipped you the wink, at some point, while we were in that Dalek base, didn't he? He told you not to trust me."

"'She'll have to take your word on that'," Seo said. "That's Narvin's code for… 'Time Lord up to no good. Tell him nothing.' And I'm inclined to trust his judgement."

"I thought you said you didn't trust Narvin, anymore."

"I may not trust him to tell me the truth," Seo said, "but I still trust him with my life. After all, when there was no one else, he saved me from…"

She stopped herself.

"From…?" the Doctor prompted.

Seo shook her head. "No. Never mind. It's not important."

"Seo, Narvin trusted _me_ to save your life, right now," the Doctor said. "You heard him say so. The only reason he told you not to talk to me is because he didn't want either of us asking questions."

Seo wavered.

"And you have questions you want answered, don't you?" the Doctor prompted. "I saw you with Narvin. You were outraged when he told you to stay out of this. You want to know what that was all about."

"I…" Seo started.

Then stopped. Didn't say anything more.

"My friend, Romana, is dying," the Doctor entreated her. "And I think you may be my only chance to find out why. You said you didn't want her to die. So even if you don't trust me — help me. Please."

"I'm your prisoner!" Seo reminded him.

"I don't take 'prisoners,'" the Doctor replied. "I take companions. We both want to save Romana. We could work together. Ask questions, be nosy, and get to the bottom of all of this. Then, once we're done… I'll let you go."

Seo hesitated.

"Your choice," the Doctor said, offering her his hand.

Seo sighed.

But shook his hand with her left. "All right," she said. "If you've _really_ got a way to save President Romana… then I'll help. But I still don't know if I can trust you."

The Doctor beamed at her.

Then raced back to the central console. "First things first! Whatever's going on with Romana, it _must_ have something to do with this 'Olitzitz' race I keep hearing about."

"Why?" Seo asked, following him.

"I've never heard of them," said the Doctor. "Romana's never heard of them. No one's ever heard of them! Not even the Matrix on Gallifrey. And given that they were, apparently, a powerful temporal race — that's highly suspicious."

Seo clasped her hands behind her back. "So… what? You think someone altered history, creating a new timeline that contained the Olitzitz?"

"Makes sense, doesn't it?" the Doctor said. "Somehow, the alteration that created the Olitzitz has affected Romana's timeline, at some point in her own past. So all we need to do is go back, find the source of the temporal alteration, and…"

"Doctor," Seo interrupted.

He looked up at her.

"Two things," Seo told him. "First… _I've_ heard of them."

"Yes, yes, but you're not a Time Lord," the Doctor dismissed. "You'd remember any alteration to the timeline like it was always supposed to be there."

"No, Doctor, you don't understand," Seo said, stepping forwards. "I was there. I saw it happen. I watched them die." She shuddered. "I'm not sure I'll ever really get over that."

"Yes, but perhaps you weren't _supposed_ to be there or see…" The Doctor trailed off — as a thought struck him. He looked up at her. "Oh. You… were there."

"Yes."

"And Narvin placed a temporal firewall inside the Matrix," the Doctor recalled, "hiding anything having to do with you or your past."

"Yes."

"Which means the Matrix might know all about the Olitzitz," the Doctor said, "but we can't tell — because the information's behind that firewall."

He thought about this, a moment.

Then ran to the other side of the console.

"TARDIS databanks," the Doctor said, typing away at them. "Narvin might have hidden records of your past from normal databases, but this is a Type 40. He'd never have had the opportunity to break into _these_ databanks."

Seo tried to peer over his shoulder. "Any luck?"

"Nope," the Doctor said. "Entry not found." He spun around, to face her. Mind racing. "You. You… were there."

"Yes, I said that," Seo agreed.

"And Narvin was very keen to keep you out of this," the Doctor said. He reflected. "I wonder if he had another reason, besides just 'Time Lords arresting you for theft'. Perhaps he knows something we don't."

"That sounds like Narvin." Seo paused. Then, in a lower voice, added, "You know… there _is_ one other thing, Doctor, that you're forgetting."

The Doctor leaned back against the console. "Oh?"

"I know about the Olitzitz and the Nightmare Ring because I'm involved," said Seo. "Narvin knows, because of me. And I'm sure investigating President Romana's illness helped, too."

"I'm sure."

"But other than Narvin, none of you so-called 'higher species' know anything about them." Seo crossed her arms. "So, how do _the Daleks_ know?"

The Doctor's eyes went very wide.

His face got that 'suddenly, things are much, much worse than I ever imagined' look.

"Oh, Seo," the Doctor said. "I really, really wish you hadn't asked that."


	8. Chapter 8

"REPORT," commanded the Dalek Supreme, when the team got back from investigating their destroyed base.

"BASE SHOWED SIGNS OF INTRUSION AND SABOTAGE," the Dalek squad reported. "HOWEVER, SURVIVING MONITORING EQUIPMENT REPORTED THE NEAR-SUCCESS OF PROJECT OLITZITZ. THE VITAL COMPONENT HAS BEEN FOUND."

"IMPOSSIBLE," the Dalek Supreme insisted. "TIMELINE TRACES INDICATE THAT THE VITAL COMPONENT IS DEAD."

"INCORRECT," said the Dalek squad. "THE VITAL COMPONENT HAS BEEN SHIELDED FROM US. BUT THE VITAL COMPONENT REMAINS ALIVE."

The Dalek Supreme squirmed with sudden glee, inside its casing. It had written off Project Olitzitz long ago. But if the vital component was still alive… if his Daleks were right…

"REPORT ON STATUS OF NIGHTMARE RING," said the Dalek Supreme.

"NIGHTMARE RING HAS BEEN DESTROYED," the Dalek squad admitted. "NIGHTMARE RING REMAINS DISCONTINUOUS ACROSS ITS OWN TIMELINE."

"SHOW ME," the Dalek Supreme commanded.

The Daleks obeyed, showing the timeline of the Nightmare Ring weapon. Sure enough, the Dalek Supreme could see the Nightmare Ring vanishing, shortly after a certain point, and only appearing, again, when Sil of Thoros Beta had discovered it.

The Dalek Supreme thought this through.

He reexamined all the information the Daleks had brought him.

"PREPARE FOR EXTRACTION OF THE VITAL COMPONENT AND RETRIEVAL OF THE NIGHTMARE RING FROM AN EARLIER TIMEZONE," the Dalek Supreme commanded. "PROJECT OLITZITZ WILL SUCCEED. THE DALEKS WILL BE SUPREME!"

* * *

The Doctor whirled around the central console, trying to program in coordinates. Seo followed close behind, careful not to touch the console.

"And that's what the Daleks asked you about, most, when they interrogated you?" the Doctor asked. "The Olitzitz?"

"Yes," Seo agreed. "They wanted details. How the Olitzitz had died. What their technology was like. And just… everything, I guess."

"Of course," the Doctor said. "Of course! Why else would the Daleks keep you alive so long? Why would they need to duplicate you? They knew Narvin would come looking for you, even if you were dead! But they didn't _just_ want you as a trap for Narvin. Somehow, your information is vital to them."

"I couldn't tell the Daleks very much, though," Seo said. "I was just a child, when everything with the Olitzitz happened. I didn't really understand what was going on, at the time."

The Doctor nodded, flipping a few levers.

"Just a child… didn't understand anything… well, that'll make it harder to narrow down a location for the Olitzitz," the Doctor said. He turned to her. "Do you remember the names of any planets? Stars? Do you have any sort of reference point to go off of? Perhaps another species, that…?"

"I know the spacio-temporal coordinates," Seo offered.

The Doctor paused. "Well… that works too."

* * *

The TARDIS materialized with a wheezing groan, in a side road off the center of a city marketplace. The door opened, and the Doctor's voice rang out, as he stepped outside.

"...located strangely close to Earthspace," the Doctor pointed out, leaving the ship. "Just outside the Earth Empire, come to think of it." He looked around himself, as two green-skinned children ran past, playing a game. He could hear throngs of people in the nearby streets. "And… for a race that's supposed to be extinct, everyone seems pretty alive."

"It's just _inside_ the Earth Empire, actually," Seo said, sneaking out of the TARDIS. She jumped on the Doctor's back, shoving a chloroform cloth over his mouth. "In my own timezone. Easy jump to get home and escape."

She could see that spark of realization, in the Doctor's eyes, just before he blacked out, as worked out that she'd lied.

But she didn't care.

She'd be on a ship home, shortly.

She dragged the Doctor to the corner where his TARDIS met the brick wall behind it, hiding him. Then stole the TARDIS key from his pocket, and carefully locked the door.

"I don't want you using your TARDIS to chase after me," Seo muttered. Pocketed the key. "By the time you find a way back in, I'll be long gone."

Then she ran to the spaceship bazaar — the one this planet was famous for.

Ready to make her escape.

* * *

Ten minutes later, Seo was back.

"Either his TARDIS is a useless piece of junk," she said, shooting the TARDIS an evil glare, "or he did this on purpose." She turned back to the unconscious Doctor, giving him the same glare. "I don't know when you've taken me, but it's not the coordinates I gave you. And I've got a feeling you knew that."

She double-checked the Doctor. Still out. Good.

"Narvin was right when he said I shouldn't trust you," Seo said, as she raided his pockets. "You may claim you're a renegade, but ultimately, you Time Lords are all the same."

She scattered all the items she found across the ground. Grinned, as she found the sonic screwdriver, wire cutters, and… a pair of rubber gloves.

Seo laughed. "Oh, he's made this too easy!"

Pocketing the sonic screwdriver and donning the gloves, Seo dug the TARDIS key out of her own pocket, and shoved it into the lock. With the rubber gloves on, she wouldn't have to worry about getting electrocuted, if she touched the console.

"Don't go anywhere," Seo told the unconscious Doctor, as she slipped into the TARDIS. "I'll be right back."

* * *

The Doctor groaned, as he regained consciousness.

Rubbed his head.

"Stupid, stupid Doctor," he chided himself. "Of course she wouldn't give you the coordinates for the Olitzitz. She'd give you the coordinates she needed to escape. Should have seen that one coming."

He was tempted to let her go, to be honest. She seemed harmless.

But whatever clues he needed, to save Romana — Seo had them. For Romana's sake, the Doctor couldn't let Seo escape. Not yet.

(Romana, of course, had known that.)

"Right, then," the Doctor said, getting up. "Time to…"

He frowned, as he noticed the items from his pockets scattered across the ground. Someone had gone through his things.

Right… thief.

Marvelous.

Shoving items back into his pockets, he took a mental inventory, to work out what was missing.

No sonic screwdriver.

No the TARDIS key.

No wire cutters.

And…

"No rubber gloves," the Doctor breathed.

Ran to the TARDIS and grabbed spare key from behind the "P" in "Police Box." Shoved it into the lock.

"Seo," the Doctor warned, stepping inside, "don't you dare…!"

He stopped.

The console room was empty.

"Seo?" the Doctor called. But it was more than just the console room that was empty. He could feel… the whole TARDIS was empty.

And… at the base of the console...

"Cut wires," the Doctor said, racing over to it. He ducked down underneath, to find that one of the components had been removed. "And, surprise, surprise, the Time Vector Stabilizer is missing. Brilliant!"

The Doctor kicked the console, in irritation.

The Time Vector Stabilizer was one of those components that was very hard to replace, and which would effectively ground a TARDIS until it was.

She might not have killed his ship.

But she'd done the next best thing.

The TARDIS databanks blinked into life, showing the Doctor — rather helpfully — a bit about the planet he was on.

"Yavron Erat," the Doctor read. "Famous for its immense bazaar selling spaceships and their components. Rumored to have an extensive black market featuring time ships and temporal technology."

Ah.

So there was hope for him, after all.

"If she needs money to buy a ship to get home," the Doctor reasoned, "pawning Gallifreyan technology would get her more than enough. And that means… I can get that stabilizer back."

He spun around, racing out of his ship. Pocketed his spare TARDIS key, as he burst into the bright morning air.

"Spaceship bazaar," the Doctor said, to himself, shutting the door and running down the street, looking for clues. "Spaceship bazaar. Where would I find…?"

At the end of the street, he found a sign for it.

"Perfect!" the Doctor said, heading off.


	9. Chapter 9

The spaceship bazaar was five minutes walk away. And, apparently, closed.

Permanently.

Not a spaceship or component left in sight.

"I wonder if she knew it would be closed," the Doctor pondered. He frowned. "Or if she didn't care, because she was only interested in the black market."

Behind him, he heard the sounds of footsteps and the hum of energy pistols powering up.

The Doctor turned. Found fifty green-skinned aliens with buggy eyes and scaly-feathers, attired in police-looking uniforms — all pointing guns at him.

The shade from the tarp awning that was hanging, by a rope, above the closed bazaar entrance, drooped across their faces.

"So, another human looking for a spaceship," the chief of police remarked, taking aim. "Do we kill him, now, boys, just to teach Earth a lesson?"

"Not human!" the Doctor protested, raising his hands. "And, before you ask, I'm not from Earth, either."

"You look human," the police chief said.

"Yes, but appearances aren't everything," the Doctor dismissed. "Although… I am _searching_ for a human. Have you seen her? Very pale, blond hair, brown eyes…"

"What's it to you, if we have?" the police chief said.

"Detective John Smith, of the intergalactic police," the Doctor introduced himself. "I'm pursuing an escaped fugitive carrying some dangerous temporal equipment. I have reason to believe she was here."

The police chief lowered his gun. "Yeah," he admitted. "There was a woman. About fifteen minutes ago. We tried to shoot her, and she ran off." He pointed. "That way."

"In that case, I won't waste any more of your time, officer," the Doctor said, pushing through the police and heading off, away from the spaceship bazaar. "Thanks for your help. I'll put in a good word for you, at…"

A laser shot came so close to his shoulder, he could feel the heat.

The Doctor froze.

"Not so fast," said the police chief. "Only one sort, around here, is interested in 'temporal equipment'. Earth Miners."

The Doctor spun back, to face them. "Miners?"

"Just here to dig up a few minerals — that's what they said, wasn't it?" the police chief said, and the other policemen confirmed it. The chief's eyes burned with anger and hatred. "Didn't tell us they'd be using 'temporal equipment' to do it. Didn't tell us they'd be destroying our people and planet!"

"Mining with temporal equipment?" the Doctor asked. That was worrying. Terribly worrying.

"Gets the minerals out faster, I'll bet, when they drill back in time!" the police chief said. "Doesn't matter that our people start aging and dying, every time the Earth-men tear up the ground!"

"A group of miners from Earth are doing that?" Now, the Doctor _knew_ he had to step in and stop this. And, of course, at the same time, get the TARDIS component he needed back from Seo, recapture her, and work out what was killing Romana.

But that was fine — he could multi-task.

" _You're_ doing it!" the police chief shouted. He stepped forwards, a crazed look appearing on his face. "Yes, I recognize you, now. I've seen you, before! The head of the mining ship!"

"If you'll excuse my saying so… you're not looking awfully well," the Doctor said, backing away, slowly. "Mental manipulation, at a guess."

"Kill him!" the chief shouted at his men.

But before they could, the rope hanging up the tarp awning above them was cut. The tarp flapped down, right on top of the group of policemen. The policemen struggled to yank the tarp off, so they could see where they were shooting.

The Doctor glanced up at the rooftop where the rope had been fastened.

He could see a blond-haired figure running off, up there.

"Spying on me?" the Doctor asked, as he turned to run, himself. "Interesting. Why are you more interested in me, than in getting off-world?"

He could hear the police already coming after him, shooting, so he changed direction and darted down another, more populated street, hoping to lose them. Or, at the very least, hoping they wouldn't keep shooting, when he was in the midst of a crowd of innocent people.

As it turned out, this wasn't his finest move.

The people nearby the Doctor all stared at him, then began to grow angry. They all started screaming at him that he was an Earth-man, and throwing things at him.

Then, they mobbed him.

Their every action grew angrier and more crazed, as whatever mental control had overtaken the police now overtook them.

"Listen, this has all been a terrible mistake," the Doctor told them.

"Kill the Earth-man!" the crowd shouted. "Tear the human apart!"

Then time shuddered, around them.

The people all froze, as a wave of time distortion flooded the area. The hands and faces of everyone who'd been holding the Doctor grew older, more withered. Their eyes grew haunted, their mouths formed silent screams… and the Doctor knew, then, that they were aging to death in a matter of minutes — and were aware of everything that was happening to them.

The Doctor felt someone yank him by the collar of his jacket, and drag him away from the crowd.

That someone… was Seo.

"Move it, Time Lord," Seo said, her voice low, "if you don't want them to kill you. Whether or not _I'll_ kill you is still up for debate."

The Doctor turned, releasing himself from her grip, and found she was now armed with one of the rifles the police had used. Her eyes were hard and icy.

"Don't tell me the mental conditioning has gotten to you, too?" the Doctor asked.

"What part of 'move it, Time Lord' didn't you understand?!" Seo shouted at him. Around them, the time distortion was already ebbing. "Run, you idiot!"

They ran, as the world unfroze around them.

It was, the Doctor thought, a strange kind of time distortion. The buildings were still perfectly intact… but anything biological was decayed and withered. Many people were dead. Others, once children, were now old and wrinkled.

Only two people, in the nearby area, had been completely untouched by the time distortion — himself, and Seo.

Interesting that _she_ wasn't affected.

"This _is_ the timezone I gave you coordinates for," Seo said, as they ran. " _My_ timezone. I checked!" She glared at him. "What have you done to it?!"

"You think this is _my_ fault?" the Doctor asked. That might explain why she was so angry with him. "Those policemen said it was miners from Earth, engaging in a temporal drilling operation."

Seo still eyed him, suspiciously. But loosened her grip on the gun, a little, as she ran.

"Oh, so you don't discount that possibility?" the Doctor noted.

"I… never said…" Seo shook her head, trying to get her thoughts in order. "If this doesn't have anything to do with you, then why did you bring us here?!"

"Actually, the coordinates were yours," the Doctor said. "So, technically, _you_ brought us here."

Seo said nothing. But, still running, let the gun drop down to her side.

"Temporal drilling," she muttered, under her breath. "Should have known."

"Should you?" the Doctor asked. An edge crept into his voice. "This happen a lot, on Earth, in your timezone? Humans wandering around, destroying planets using temporal mining technology, just to turn a profit?"

Seo shrugged.

She didn't bother to answer. Just waited for what she knew he'd say, next — what any Time Lord would say, in this situation — that _this_ was why Gallifrey should be in charge of time travel, and none of the other races were worthy of it!

The Doctor didn't say that.

"Well, it has to stop," was all the Doctor said.

Seo almost tripped over her own feet, she was so surprised. "What?"

"You don't think it should stop?" the Doctor asked.

"No, I just… thought you'd say…" Seo shook her head. Then clicked the safety back on the gun. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

The Doctor, still running, glanced back at her — noting the safety catch. "Not going to shoot me, after all?"

"No," Seo said. Glared at him. "But I'm still not giving back your Time Vector Stabilizer."

"Ah," the Doctor said. "Don't trust me enough for that?"

"I don't trust you at all," Seo said. "I've just decided not to shoot you. Yet."

"So… you're not planning to drop the gun, then," the Doctor said.

They slowed, then stopped, as it began to become abundantly clear that no one was following them.

"Oh, because — let me guess," Seo said, coldly. "You don't like guns."

"I don't," the Doctor confirmed. "They go bang and hurt people."

Seo sighed. "Thing is… I'm a vampire. I don't need a gun to kill you. But if I kill you with my teeth — you won't regenerate." She raised the gun. "If I shoot you, you will. So, think of the gun as my way of being nice."

"Nice, is it?" The Doctor spread his arms. "Well, go on, then, if you think it's so 'nice'. Shoot me! I'll regenerate, giving you plenty of time to escape."

Seo didn't do anything.

"A gun's no good if you're not prepared to use it!" the Doctor said. "So, go on. Shoot me."

Seo glared at him.

Then, reluctantly, put down the gun.

"As I thought," the Doctor said. "For all your threats, and despite everything your DNA says… you're not a killer. You don't really want to hurt me."

In a flash, Seo leapt at him. She grabbed him by the jacket and threw him up against the nearest wall. Her eyes were fierce and animalistic.

She had no fangs, was able to stand in sunlight...

But in that second, staring into her face, the Doctor could absolutely believe this woman was a vampire.

In fact, it was so blindingly obvious, he wondered how he could have missed it, before.

"Don't I, Time Lord?" Seo growled at him. "I'm not just Narvin's harmless little puppy. I've killed more people than you could possibly imagine. So what makes you think I'd give a damn about killing you?"

The Doctor didn't look away from her eyes. "You leapt in front of a group of Daleks, earlier, to save my life," he reminded her. "If you want me dead, that's a funny way to go about proving it."

Seo said nothing.

"I don't doubt you could kill me in a second, if you wanted," the Doctor said. "But I've seen you placed your own life at risk, to save others, at least three times, since I met you. Which means — if you're waving a gun around, or throwing people against walls… it's not because you really _would_ kill someone. You just want me to _think_ that." He lowered his voice. "Why?"

Seo didn't drop his stare. "Stop hurting Narvin, Doctor," she said, "or, I swear, I _will_ kill you."

"Narvin isn't the one in danger," the Doctor repeated. He wondered how many times he had to repeat it, before she believed it. "You are. And the more you act like this, the worse…"

"You always say that!" Seo shouted. "You always say it's got nothing to do with Narvin! There's just some poor, defenseless planet or person that you want me to help you save, because you're the lonely renegade Time Lord wandering through time and space, rescuing planets, defeating monsters, and picking up alien companions!" She shook the Doctor. "And it's _always_ about Narvin! Every single time!"

The Doctor stared at her.

Honestly confused.

"You and I… haven't met, before today?" the Doctor verified. "I'm sure we haven't."

"Do you guys find this kind of thing fun?" Seo accused, the hints of tears in her eyes. "Dragging me into your game of Gallifreyan politics? Creating all these tricks and traps, so you can use me to gain some leverage over Narvin?" She got right in the Doctor's face. "He's already in jail! What else do you want from him?!"

"Seo, I don't want to do anything to Narvin," the Doctor protested. "I've only run into him twice. I have nothing against the man."

"Don't you?" Seo accused. "Then why the same crazy story, again? It's always the same, whenever you guys try to use me to hurt Narvin. It's like you're reading off a script."

"Story?"

"First, you drop a casual hint about how you have an old type 40 TARDIS," Seo said. "Then, you start ranting about how you hate guns — they go bang and hurt people. Next, you're going to tell me that we're actually very much alike, because you're a thief, too — you stole your TARDIS."

The Doctor, for a few seconds, couldn't even speak.

Just stared at her.

"How did you know that?!" the Doctor cried, at last.

Seo gave a bitter laugh. "How do I know? Really? After all this time, you still have the gall to ask me _that_?" She dropped him, and stepped away. "I'm not as stupid as you seem to think I am, Doctor."

"I never said you were stupid," the Doctor said. "But you still haven't explained how you know about my stealing the TARDIS."

"What? You really thought you were the first Time Lord to come up with that?" Seo snapped. "I got news for you, pal. It's been done, before. Done to death."

"I'm sorry?" the Doctor asked.

"The benevolent Time Lord who wanders through space and time, saving planets, right and left, with just a cricket ball and a piece of string — and wanting nothing in return! Not even money!" Seo scoffed. "I mean, seriously. If you CIA guys were going to pick a script to follow, you could at least pick one that's plausible."

"Are you saying that other Time Lords are pretending to be me, in order to manipulate you?" The Doctor couldn't help but feel worried about that. "And — what's so implausible about me, anyways?"

"No one saves planets for nothing, Doctor," Seo said. "I've done it lots of times. I should know. Everyone wants something."

"I want peace, harmony, and a little bit of stability," the Doctor offered. "Why? What do _you_ want?"

Seo said nothing for a long time.

"It… doesn't matter," she said, at last.

Then she turned away from him.

Gave a disgusted sigh.

"I don't know why you're sticking to this stupid story for longer than all the others, Doctor," she said. "But you're right about one thing — I'm not going to kill you." She made a face. "I couldn't stomach a Time Lord. I bet I'd be able to taste each of your lies and duplicitous thoughts, as I drained you dry."

"Very comforting," the Doctor said. Then, in a lower voice, added, "I'm not your enemy, Seo. Narvin wanted me to save you, remember?"

"Oh, so you fooled Narvin," Seo snapped. "Bravo. I'm so proud of you." She glanced back at the Doctor. "If you ever want your TARDIS to fly, again — you better call up your CIA buddies, right now, and find some way to get Narvin out of jail." She headed off. "In the meantime, I've got a planetary disaster to deal with."

The Doctor waited for her to leave.

Then grinned, and revealed the Time Vector Stabilizer — which he'd managed to pick out of her pocket, when she was busy throwing him against the wall and shouting about Narvin.

"I'm surprised she didn't notice me lifting this off her," the Doctor commented. "She should have done. She must have been very, _very_ upset over Narvin."

She still had his sonic screwdriver, of course. He'd have to get that back, later. While he saved the planet. But that didn't bother him.

Normal day, really.

"To the mining shuttle!" the Doctor said.


	10. Chapter 10

The first thing to do, Seo knew, was to find the mining shuttle. If there even _was_ one around here. If the Doctor wasn't lying, and this whole thing really didn't have anything to do with him.

"Thing is… it really _could_ be Earth miners," Seo reminded herself. "There are a lot of Earthnick bastards who'd do something like this. If there weren't, I wouldn't have nearly as many people to rob and bankrupt."

"Everyone has their price," came a voice to her right.

Seo paused.

Spun around, to find a strange man perched on a crate. He looked human… but looks weren't everything. Seo knew that, only too well.

"I've seen you, before," Seo said. She tried to pick the memory out of her head. "Or someone like you. I can't place where or when, but… I'm sure…"

"Your father was my agent," said the man.

Oh.

 _That_ was where she'd seen someone like this, before.

Seo took a step back. "You're another one of my father's people. I heard you were all busy killing each other, back on your home planet."

"I have a proposition for you," the man said.

"Thanks, but no thanks," Seo said, turning away. "You're not the first of my father's people with a proposition. I'm still trying to deal with the repercussions of the last one."

"Help me," the man offered, "and I can save Narvin."

Seo froze.

Her hands started trembling.

"I thought that'd do the trick," the man said. He jumped off the crate. "Interesting. Narvin left you, five centuries ago. You moved on. You even got married — to a human. What happened to change things between you?"

Seo felt it was, frankly, none of this guy's business.

"I'm sure you already know," she said. "Or were you and your people too busy fighting endless civil wars, to bother to check?"

The man did know. "Your husband was murdered," he said. "Brutally. Cruelly. You blamed yourself for it. Seeing him like that… feeling that guilt… you lost control. The hunger took you over."

"I…" Seo started.

But she didn't know how to finish that sentence.

"We _have_ been watching," the man said. "I watched you seal yourself away from the universe, unable to trust yourself around others. I saw how, in your isolation, your hunger and grief plunged you into a downwards spiral of insanity and bloodlust — from which, you feared, you could never emerge." He stepped closer to her. "And I saw the one person who braved your insanity, to save you from it."

"Narvin," Seo whispered.

She turned back, to face the man.

"How long ago was that?" the man asked. "Must be… fifty years? Amazing that it's taken this long for the Time Lords to realize that spark between you two was slowly getting reignited."

"What do you have against the Time Lords?" Seo demanded.

"What do _you_?" the man asked. "They use you. Manipulate you, just to hurt Narvin or to make him look bad. They hate you for being a vampire, but you put up with it — because you know that, if they ever found out your _true_ species of origin… they'd kill you, without a second thought."

Seo said nothing.

"Now, they're going to kill Narvin," said the man.

"They're not, really," Seo dismissed. "They wouldn't."

"Look into your heart," the man said. "Do you truly believe that?"

Seo couldn't answer.

She was afraid of the answer.

"The Time Lords think you're just Narvin's pet," the man said. "His… _puppy_."

"Don't call me that," Seo warned.

"Anything you do that's clever, they assume Narvin trained you to do," said the man. "Your thefts. Your sabotage. Your stint with the TARDISes. They'll pin the blame on Narvin. Gallifrey's Lady President may try to protect him… but when she dies…"

"Stop it," Seo said.

"Is this becoming a habit of yours?" the man asked. "Allowing those you love to die?" He stretched out a hand to Seo. "Accept my offer. Save Narvin."

Seo bit her lower lip.

She wanted to say yes… so badly…

"What's the catch?" Seo asked. "Everyone wants something. What do you want, in return?"

He leaned in.

And whispered, into her ear: "I want you to kill the Doctor."

Seo pulled away. Frowned.

"Why?" she asked, confused. "He's just some random Time Lord."

"I have my reasons," said the man. "Kill the Doctor, and I'll save Narvin. Let the Doctor live… and he'll be the _only_ Time Lord to live. Gallifrey will fall. Everyone will die — Narvin included."

"And… I think we're done, here," Seo said, turning away from him. "Thank you so much for confirming my worst fears about my father's people. 'Kill someone, or I'll destroy Gallifrey.' That's really classy."

"It isn't a threat — it's a fact," the man warned Seo. "One day, the Doctor will hold the Moment in his hands. One day, he will have the power to destroy Gallifrey. Kill him, Seosyrae, or you'll be condemning all Time Lords. Kill him, or you'll be condemning Narvin."

"The Doctor? The guy whose TARDIS console is held together by duct tape and rubber bands? _He's_ going to somehow get the power to destroy Gallifrey? _That_ guy?!" Seo shook her head. "You're delusional."

"It's true," said the strange man. "Walk away from me, Seo, and you'll be condemning an entire planet to death!"

"Yeah, and dark matter is made of Swiss cheese," Seo said, walking away. Called back, over her shoulder, "Look, do me a favor and tell the rest of your people to stop bothering me. I've got way too much to do, without your 'propositions'."

The man watched her go. Impassively.

"You _will_ kill the Doctor," he said. "You were pledged to me, long ago. You should have been mine. So, if you don't _want_ to do my bidding… I suppose I'll just have to _make_ you."


	11. Chapter 11

The Doctor got to the mining shuttle first.

He frowned, as he entered. The whole shuttle was full of complex temporal machinery, lights flickering and computer humming… but the shuttle, itself, was devoid of human life.

In fact… devoid of _any_ life.

And, from the look of things, there hadn't been anyone inside this shuttle for quite some time, now.

"But if the mining shuttle's deserted, then what's really going on, here?" the Doctor asked, leaning in closer to the machinery. "Is it the ship doing this, all by itself?"

He squinted, analyzing it all more closely.

The temporal components were definitely human in design. But the Doctor couldn't see anything about them that'd cause the time distortion he'd witnessed, in the city.

Most of this equipment seemed to be simply monitoring a series of temporal energy emissions coming from inside the mine shaft.

"Terribly interesting energy emissions, too," the Doctor said, altering settings on the shipboard computer, to bring up a spectrographic analysis. "Decays organic tissue, but nothing else. That can't be normal for mining operations. It'd serve no purpose."

Perhaps the humans had unearthed something they hadn't expected, buried in the ground, and _it_ was the source of the problems?

Whatever the Doctor had done to the ship's computer, however, triggered something deep inside its programming.

A narrow steel cage dropped down, from the ceiling, trapping the Doctor.

Lights began to flash, the outer doors began to seal, and the shipboard displays showed the message, "SELF DESTRUCT IN 20 SECONDS."

* * *

Before Seo arrived at the mining shuttle, she stopped by the mine shaft.

Examined it, closely. Frowned.

Deep in thought.

The clang of an alarm from the nearby mining shuttle startled her out of her thoughts. She spun around, then raced towards it, as she saw the outer hatch attempting to close and seal shut.

The Doctor. It had to be.

He was locking her out. Concealing the evidence.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Seo shouted, sprinting forwards. She used the Doctor's sonic screwdriver to delay the hatch's closing, and only just managed to leap in, before the hatch sealed.

The Doctor was inside, just as she'd guessed he would be. But he wasn't exactly calm and in control. In fact, he was trapped inside a tiny cage, trying to reach through the bars and reprogram the shipboard computer.

"Ten seconds to self-destruct," the Doctor told her. He spied the sonic screwdriver, in her hands. "Oh! Perfect! Give it, here!"

Five seconds left.

Seo, not seeing she had many options, raced forwards to give back the sonic screwdriver.

As she did so, a camera in the corner whirred. As if in response, the alarms went silent. The self-destruct protocols shut down. The countdown stopped.

"You disabled the self destruct?" Seo asked the Doctor. "From in there?"

The Doctor frowned. "I did nothing." He looked up. Noticed the camera. "You came into camera range. And the moment you did, someone shut down the self-destruct."

Seo also looked up at the camera.

"Back in the marketplace, those policemen went mad with rage, when they looked at me," the Doctor continued. "Whereas, with you, they just fired a few warning shots. And although the mob swarmed me, they didn't even notice you."

"What are you implying?" Seo gestured around herself, angrily. "You think I set this whole thing up, just to kill you?!"

"No! Not at all," the Doctor insisted. "I just think that, whoever did — wants to keep you alive."

Seo didn't look surprised by this.

The Doctor thought that was intriguing.

"And… they want you dead," Seo muttered, stepping over to the computer and activating a subroutine, inside. "Why?"

At Seo's virtual command, the cage surrounding the Doctor slid back up into the ceiling. Releasing him.

"Well, I doubt it's personal," the Doctor dismissed. "Probably just—"

"Trust me — it's personal," Seo cut in. "'I want you to kill the Doctor,' he told me. Not 'the Time Lord' or 'that guy you were hanging out with'. He called you by name." She stared at him, for a few long seconds, looking him up and down. "Just who are you, exactly?"

"Sorry?" The Doctor blinked. "Seo, did you just say someone asked you to _kill_ me?"

Seo said nothing. But the look on her face told him more than enough.

"Who?" the Doctor asked. "When?"

Seo ignored those questions. "He talked like you were this really powerful, dangerous guy. Which — no offense — sounded absurd. At first." She hesitated. "But then I remembered… Narvin called you the Daleks' number one enemy. And if even the _Daleks_ are afraid of you…"

"Daleks? Did _they_ ask you to kill me?" the Doctor asked — but that didn't make sense. She'd have known better than to trust Daleks.

"So who are you, Doctor?" Seo pressed. "What are your plans for Gallifrey? And why do you have so many enemies?"

"My plans for Gallifrey?" The Doctor actually started to laugh.

"Just answer the question," Seo demanded.

"You're serious?" The Doctor wondered what she expected him to do to the planet. He didn't usually give Gallifrey much thought. "All right, then. I'm just a traveler. That's all. I have no ambition, no revenge schemes, no desire for wealth or power back home — so no plans for Gallifrey. And — before you even ask — no, I don't want to hurt Narvin. In fact, once I've saved Romana, I promise to do anything in my power to help you exonerate him."

Some of the tension fell away from Seo's face.

"And as for enemies," the Doctor continued, "yes, from time to time, I foil the odd alien invasion or rumble the odd Dalek or Sontaran or Cyberman plot. Basically, if I land somewhere where terrible people are doing rubbish things, I stop them. That seems to create a lot of enemies."

"Even amongst your own people?" Seo asked.

The Doctor frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The temporal emissions from the mine shaft," said Seo, pointing in its direction, "are Gallifreyan. That close to the source, I could practically taste it."

"Taste?"

"You know, like how you can practically taste a wine, just by smelling it," Seo said. She licked her lips, hungrily. "Those emissions… had the taste of Time Lords. Rich, bold and thick. An amazing vintage, aged for eons and eons, every sip bursting with juicy artron."

Right.

That was… disturbing.

Seo, suddenly embarrassed, backed away. "Not that I'd ever actually eat a Time Lord, or anything."

"You just happen to know how we taste," the Doctor pointed out.

"No! It's just… I can smell the time on you. It's really, _really_ strong." She raised up her hands. "I swear to God, Doctor — I have _never_ killed a Time Lord, and I never would. In fact, when that guy asked me to kill you, a few minutes ago, I told him to go to Hell!"

Oh, so she _had_ said no?

That was vaguely comforting.

"And 'that guy' would be… one of my own people?" the Doctor asked.

Seo hesitated. "No, he was… a…" She paused. Then shrugged it off. "Never mind. It's not important."

"Considering he wants to kill me," the Doctor said, "I beg to differ."

Seo didn't answer the Doctor. She went back to the ship's control panel, accessed the computer, and began to program in a flight path.

"The Time Lords are clearly trying to cover their tracks and make it look like this whole disaster is being caused by humans and Earth technology," Seo said. She gestured around them. "Observe: Earth blasting crates, Earth temporal tech, not a Gallifreyan gizmo in sight. Not to mention the mind control on the citizens, convincing them that they've seen human miners floating around." She darted over to one of the blasting crates. "But the deception gives us an advantage. I know Earth temporal systems. I know how to manipulate them."

Seo grabbed up a few temporal components from the machinery around them, and began to fix them to the top of the sonic screwdriver.

Then turned it back on.

Instead of emitting a sonic burst, the screwdriver emitted a weak laser beam. Too weak to cause any real damage, but strong enough to be visible.

"Sono-luminescence," the Doctor recognized. "The art of turning sound into light."

Seo turned it off, and tucked it away. "At _full_ strength, it'll drain the battery in just a few minutes," she said. "But a few minutes are all I need. Now, if I can just find that Time Vector Stabilizer…"

She froze.

As she realized it wasn't in her pockets.

The Doctor brought it out. "This, you mean?"

"How did you get that?" Seo demanded, plucking it out of his hands. "You can't have taken it off me. I'd know!"

"You were quite distressed over Narvin, at the time," the Doctor replied. "I can only assume that you had bigger things on your mind."

He could see her getting distracted, again, just thinking about Narvin.

"Seo, he _will_ be all right," the Doctor told her. "Romana said…"

"She may trust him," Seo whispered. "But she's dying, Doctor. When she's gone… can you guarantee the next President of Gallifrey will be as forgiving?"

Ah.

The Doctor was starting to see why Seo was so worried.

Seo blinked. Then shook away her worried expression. "But… no," she decided. "He'll be fine. I know he will. He's good at getting himself out of trouble."

But there was still worry, deep down inside her eyes.

The Doctor could see it.

"The trick is to get all these crates of explosives to blow at exactly the same time," Seo explained to the Doctor, turning back to them, "right as we drive this ship into the mine shaft. I assume you know something about the temporal applications of shockwave physics?"

"Temporal applications of shockwave physics?" Now, that was something the Doctor hadn't come across in a long time. "I know the theory, yes. The moment before a substance explodes, its physical properties change. Chronons are no exception."

"And if you loop that moment across a temporal probability network," Seo continued, "the intense pressure and temporal friction can force a chronon to change, four dimensionally, allowing you to travel through time." She finished her alterations to the temporal equipment on the blasting crates. "Or… if you square the third Z variable in the equation, instead of cubing it… allowing you to travel across temporal dimensions."

"Ah!" The Doctor's eyes lit up. "Which would allow you to break into a space that's dimensionally transcendental. Now, that's clever."

Seo shrugged. "Math doesn't lie."

The Doctor got to work, himself, helping her to reset the systems across the blasting crates. "What frequency are you using?"

"Eleven seventeen by five nine," Seo said. "Standard Time Lord dimensions. Even TARDISes use it."

"No, no… try seventeen by eight twenty," the Doctor corrected, making the adjustment.

"Why? That'd place us perpetually one second in the future from normal space-time."

"Yep; old Time Lord trick," the Doctor said. "This is, of course, assuming you're right about those energy emissions being Gallifreyan. If you're wrong… we'll be stuck in the middle of nowhere."

Seo hesitated. "I'm… mostly sure?"

That didn't sound good.

"Seo, was the person who asked you to kill me actually a Time Lord?" the Doctor asked.

Seo didn't answer, as she finished the adjustments. She installed the Time Vector Stabilizer in the middle of the setup control panel.

"Too late to back down, now," Seo said, and turned on the engines, to launch the ship down into the mine shaft.


	12. Chapter 12

"Is she coming?" CIA Agent Jodelex asked, pacing the room, agitatedly. "We must have dropped enough clues for her to figure it out."

CIA Agent Gaellian was sitting at a control panel, watching the security cameras. "Yes. She's coming. Right down the mine shaft." She paused. "You know, people have been trying to track down her movements for years, now, with only scattered success. How did you know she'd be coming to this planet?"

Jodelex shrugged. "I didn't," he admitted. "Narvin did. I found it in his records. First planet she would visit, with the Doctor: Yavron Erat. Don't ask me how _he_ knew." He paused. Then, a little nervously, "The Doctor's not coming down the mine shaft, too, is he?"

"He is," said Gaellian. "He's on the shuttle with her." She hesitated. "Funny thing is… I think she's starting to trust him."

Jodelex frowned. "Impossible!"

"Look at them!" said Gaellian. "They're working together." She turned to her associate. "You said that there was no way she'd ever trust him, if she met him. You said you'd made sure."

"The last ten CIA agents who tried to manipulate her all used the Doctor's backstory as cover," said Jodelex. "There's no reason she wouldn't think he was one of us."

Gaellian tilted her head, considering. "Unless… she noticed we've been trying to kill him. She isn't stupid."

"She _is_ stupid, Gaellian," Jodelex countered. "She's one of the lesser races! The Doctor is the clever one."

Jodelex thought back to the deal he'd made.

He didn't know who the strange man was, or what race he was from. But the strange man had offered Jodelex immense power and even a turn at coordinating the CIA, if he killed the Doctor.

Jodelex wasn't about to back down.

"The Doctor must have worked his magic on her," Jodelex said. "He does that with lesser races — gets them to trust him. I have no idea how."

An explosion tore through their base.

Jodelex and Gaellian were both thrown to the floor. The room shook, and the monitoring equipment began to beep and whine.

"What was that?" said Jodelex.

Gaellian scrambled back into her chair, and used the monitoring equipment. She balked. "That's… impossible!"

"With the Doctor, nothing's impossible," Jodelex said, jumping to his feet. "What's he done, now?"

"The Doctor and the thief are inside!" Gaellian said. "They used the Earth equipment in the shuttle to vault themselves inside the internal dimensions of our secret base. They're not just at the bottom of the mine shaft, where we set all our traps for her. They're actually in here, with us!"

"Where?" Jodelex demanded. "This place is huge! Give me a location and schematic!"

Gaellian brought it up, for him.

"I see them." Jodelex grabbed a staser, and handed the other to Gaellian. "Kill the Doctor, but bring Narvin's pet in, alive. I have plans for her."

"Understood," said Gaellian.

* * *

The Doctor and Seo crawled out of the wreckage of the shuttle. They were, of course, untouched by the explosion. Seo had seen to that.

"Placing us in bubble of time, moving at a different speed to the rest of the universe," the Doctor said. "Brilliant! Perfect way to keep us safe." He tucked the Time Vector Stabilizer into his pocket. "And keep this thing safe, of course."

Seo coughed, as she dusted herself off. "I'm not just a pretty face, you know." She waved the smoke away from her face, gasping in deep breaths.

"Still need to breathe?" the Doctor noted.

Seo nodded. "And I'm not bullet-proof, either, in case you're wondering," she added. "People are always making that mistake."

"Which makes you a very unusual vampire," the Doctor said. He stepped forwards, squinting to examine their surroundings. "You were right about this place being Gallifreyan. Bigger on the inside, too. We must have broken right into the internal dimensions."

He heard a distant noise, over the smoldering of the ship.

Grabbed Seo by the arm, and began to run to the nearest door. "Quickly. They'll have heard the explosion, and be after us."

Seo caught her breath, as she ran alongside the Doctor — out of that room and into the corridor, beyond.

The Doctor stumbled, as he ran, then tried to hide it. He kept feeling this… twinge, with every step he took. Like there was a very powerful temporal something, nearby. And he was running straight towards it.

"You're looking pale," Seo noted, concerned. "Is something wrong?"

"Can't you feel it?" the Doctor asked.

"Feel?" Seo sniffed the air around her. Her eyes lit up. "Oh. That!" She licked her lips, hungrily. "Yes, I noticed that a while ago."

The Doctor cringed.

Right.

"Has anyone ever mentioned that you have a very disturbing relationship to time?" the Doctor asked.

Seo looked a little flustered. "It's not… what you think. I don't drain time from people, anymore."

"Anymore?"

"I mean ever," Seo corrected. "I mean…" She sighed, eager to change the subject. "It's a long story. I don't want to talk about it."

"That's all right," the Doctor replied. "I've guessed most of it, already. After all, if you've changed your name in order to avoid the _Genocide_ Law…"

Seo looked away, ashamed.

And said nothing.

They both turned a corner, and found themselves in the middle of an open-arched, domed room. A large egg burned in the middle, energy emanating from it in waves.

The Doctor could feel its temporal power, even past the powerful shielding that surrounded the setup.

It was enough to almost bring him to his knees.

"What is it?" Seo asked, stepping towards it. Entranced.

"A weapon," the Doctor said. He grabbed her by the sleeve and tugged her back. "Don't get too close. It's dangerous."

Seo sighed. "Yeah, I kinda guessed that. But thanks." She pulled the sonic screwdriver out from her pocket, adjusting settings to make sure the laser was powerful enough to do real damage. "What I really want to know is… what parts of it do I fry, to make sure the weapon shuts down without destroying the planet?"

"Right around…" the Doctor began.

Then heard a footstep behind him, and yanked her to the ground.

"Get down!" the Doctor shouted.

The staser bolt only just missed Seo, flying over her head. She glanced back, and found a Time Lady with a staser, armed and ready, aimed at Seo and the Doctor.

"Found them in the weapon chamber, Jodelex," the Time Lady reported, into a communicator. "Have you covered the other entrance?"

"Already sealed it off and took care of it," said Jodelex, stepping forwards from behind the weapon. He aimed at the Doctor. "Doctor. I'm sorry it's come to this, but needs must."

Before he could fire, Seo brought up the sonic screwdriver, and used its laser to shoot the staser out of Jodelex's hands.

"I'm armed," Seo said.

A staser bolt struck her in the back, and she toppled to the floor.

Behind her, the Time Lady, Gaellian, gave a grim smile. "And so am I."

"Seo!" The Doctor leaned over her crumpled form, and checked her over. She was still breathing.

Still alive, then.

Just stunned.

"Good work, Agent Gaellian," said Jodelex, retrieving his staser from the ground, but finding it broken and useless. "Now, kill the Doctor, and let's get her out of here."

Gaellian hesitated.

The Doctor caught the moment of hesitation. And knew… this was his chance.

"You don't really want to shoot me, do you, Gaellian?" the Doctor asked. He waved at the glowing weapon in the center of the room. "Look at this. Look at all the death and destruction it's caused, up on the surface! Did you really join the CIA to do this?"

"I… well… no," Gaellian admitted.

"Agent Gaellian!" Jodelex snapped. "The people on this planet were already destined to die. The Web of Time says Earth temporal mining killed them. We've done nothing to alter the timeline."

Agent Gaellian didn't look so sure.

"Do you really believe that, Agent Gaellian?" the Doctor asked. "You must only be in… what? Your first incarnation? Second, at the most. The most junior member of the CIA, pushed around by a great big bully who's working to his own agenda."

"Narvin is finished, Doctor," Gaellian said. "I have no choice. I have to do what Agent Jodelex says. He's going to be the next Coordinator of the CIA."

"And now that I have Narvin's pet, I will be Coordinator for a very long time," Jodelex agreed. He reflected on the situation. Then, with a little smile, said, "On second thought… don't shoot the Doctor. It's rather a waste of five lives, don't you think?"

Gaellian, relieved, lowered her staser.

"Waste of five lives?" the Doctor asked. "What do you mean? No, actually, hold that thought…"

He snatched the screwdriver out of Seo's hand, and aimed it at just the right spot on the egg-shaped temporal weapon.

The weapon shut down.

All the monitoring instruments went up in flames.

All the software crashed.

"There we go," the Doctor said, with a grin at Jodelex. He removed the sono-luminescent equipment from the top of his sonic. "Now. You were saying?"

Jodelex, furious, grabbed the gun out of Gaellian's hands and shot the Doctor down.

"No, wait!" Gaellian cried — but it was too late. She ran over to the Doctor's fallen form, checked him over.

To Gaellian's surprise, the Doctor was still breathing.

"Like I said, killing him is a waste of five perfectly good lives," said Jodelex. "And I'd rather not have the Doctor's blood on my hands. The Lady President is quite attached to him." He turned the staser on Gaellian. "I was going to let _you_ kill the Doctor, so you could take the blame. But, apparently, that isn't going to work, anymore. Is it?"

Gaellian put up her hands, terrified. "Are you going to kill me?"

"And give up all those long lives of yours?" Jodelex asked. "No, Gaellian. You know what Narvin's pet could do, if she were to kill a Time Lord. I plan to take full advantage."

He stunned Gaellian.

She dropped to the ground.

"Coordinator Jodelex," Jodelex said, trying the name out. "The Time Lord who lived forever." He smiled. "Yes, I like that."

"You have done well," said the strange man, stepping out from the corridor, and striding towards Jodelex. "You have the elixir?"

Jodelex nodded, and revealed it to him.

"Perfect," the man said, studying it. "She won't be able to resist the hunger, when she awakes. She'll kill both the Doctor and Gaellian."

"And once she's done, that'll be the end of Narvin," Jodelex said, with a smile. "I'll enjoy getting rid of him."

"Narvin will die," the man confirmed. "Seosyrae rejected my offer, so she must suffer the consequences." He shook his head. "A pity, really. I knew her father. For his sake, I would have preferred to do this pleasantly."

Jodelex wondered, not for the first time, who this person really was. But soon dismissed the thought. The important thing was, Jodelex was getting what he wanted, most.

Shame about the weapon.

But he could always test out another one, later.

"I'll get everything prepared," Jodelex said. "I promise you, the Doctor will be dead very shortly."


	13. Chapter 13

When the Doctor woke up, he found himself imprisoned, behind bars, elsewhere in the dimensionally transcendental base that Jodelex had constructed.

The sonic screwdriver was gone.

So was the Time Vector Stabilizer.

Beside him, was Gaellian — awake — and Seo — asleep. Gaellian was in the midst of trying to talk some sense into Jodelex.

"…but it's just a theory!" Gaellian was saying. "We don't even know if it'll work. We don't understand how to get the regenerations back out, again!"

"I'm certain I'll find a way." Jodelex noticed the Doctor, awake. "Oh, look who's back with us, again." His eyes flicked over to Seo. "And the vampire's still asleep. Shame. I'm going to enjoy watching her kill you, Doctor, after what you did to my weapon."

"The Doctor is a hero of Gallifrey!" Gaellian insisted. "He's fought the Daleks, many times. Surely, with the war about to start any day, now, the Doctor is the _last_ person you should kill."

"The Doctor has made it quite clear that he wants no part in the war," Jodelex replied. "And since he's just destroyed one of the weapons we were testing for it, I feel I'm perfectly within my rights to kill him."

"Well, you're a nasty piece of work," the Doctor said. He nodded at Seo. "Since we're all stuck in here, while you're stuck out there… I'm guessing you've injected her with something that'll make her vampire-side take over. She'll kill everyone locked in with her."

Jodelex smiled.

"Not so nice for her, though," the Doctor pointed out. "Taking away her free will, like that. I don't think she actually wants to hurt anyone. Quite the opposite, in fact."

"She deserves death for what she's done to Gallifrey," Jodelex replied. "She's sabotaged our war effort. Destroyed our TARDISes."

"Then you should execute her and be done with it," Gaellian said. "Agent Jodelex…!"

" _Coordinator_ Jodelex!" Jodelex corrected. "Narvin will be out of the way, soon enough."

"Coordinator Jodelex," Gaellian said. "This woman might have cost us the war! She should die for her crimes."

"Oh, I imagine Jodelex finds her far too useful to kill her," the Doctor surmised. "Seo felt sure she'd been used against Narvin on numerous occasions. I imagine agents like Jodelex find her a useful way to manipulate him."

Seo visibly reacted, for just a second, to Narvin's name. But kept her eyes shut.

No… not just shut.

She was squeezing them tight. Her whole body tense.

Whatever Jodelex had infected her with, she was desperately struggling to fight it off and maintain control.

"Narvin is rather clever," Jodelex admitted. "And he has the ear of the Lady President. Certain agents within the CIA decided, long ago, that ruining him was counterproductive. Using his girlfriend, we could keep him on a tight leash. He'd _have_ to do what we wanted."

"And when he didn't, you could take him out of the picture, all together," the Doctor guessed, "by placing her in enough danger that he'd drop everything and run off to save her."

"He's never stopped being in love with her," said Gaellian, "since the day he met her, five centuries ago. That's what I heard."

"Sickening, isn't it?" Jodelex made a face. "A Time Lord, in love with an alien! She's practically an animal!"

Seo, her eyes still shut, gritted her teeth.

Her fists were clenched.

That made the Doctor think… what did she have, in the way of super strength? If he could make her angry enough to go after Jodelex, instead of himself and Gaellian…

She'd break down the door to their cell.

They'd be free.

"So, if that's all true… why get rid of Narvin, now?" the Doctor asked. "Why not continue to manipulate him?"

"I've gotten a better offer," said Jodelex, with a smile. "Coordinator of the CIA." He straightened, trying to look official. "And I deserve the title far more than a weak-willed, animal-loving Time Lord like Narvin."

"Do you?" the Doctor asked. Reflected. "It's funny — I never thought much of Narvin, before today. Oh, sure, he helped me defeat the Master and the Eminence — but, even so, he always seemed very… bland." The Doctor gestured at Seo. "His love for her, though — that changes everything. It's the most courageous, noble, and true thing I've ever seen from a CIA Coordinator, across all my lives."

"Courageous?!" Gaellian cried. "Doctor, she's one of the Ancient Enemy!"

"Yet, despite that, she's still the most kindhearted person in this room," the Doctor said. "And the most clever. Well, aside from me, of course." He smiled. "Yes. I can see why Narvin's so attached to her. I'm sure they'll be very happy, together."

Gaellian stared at the Doctor like he'd gone completely insane.

"You really are an irritatingly self-righteous prat, aren't you?" Jodelex said.

"Whereas you," said the Doctor, "are a morally irresponsible, power-hungry bigot. You seemed quite pleased, when Narvin was arrested, earlier. And quite cross, when you heard that Romana was certain he wasn't a traitor. I imagine that's why you want Seo to kill me? So the blame for my death will fall on Narvin's shoulders?"

"Her crimes are Narvin's crimes," Jodelex said. "You don't blame the pet for what her master trains her to do."

Seo bristled at the word 'pet'. But still didn't move.

So close.

"And killing you, Doctor, is the one crime our Lady President will never be able to forgive," Jodelex continued. "In a Gallifreyan court of law, I'll easily prove that your death was Narvin's fault. He will die, and, as the next Coordinator of the CIA, I'll inherit his little puppy-dog. I've already got a use in mind for her. You'll get a sneak preview, when she wakes up."

"I don't think so," Seo said, as her eyes opened. They burned with hatred and hunger and a fury too deep for words.

A blaze of power tore through Jodelex — almost like he was regenerating — except that every bit of artron seemed to melt his body instead of renew it, and the strings of energy that swirled and spiraled out around him were all funneling into Seo.

"How dare you use me to kill Narvin? How dare you?!" Seo shouted. She glowed, with the time she drank from him. She didn't even need to bite him. Didn't even need to touch him.

She drank him from a distance. She tasted his time as the energy swirled across her skin and tingled against her tongue.

The Doctor jumped to his feet. "What the…?!"

"Rassilon protect us!" Gaellian squeaked, pointing. "She's doing it. She's really doing it! She's eating his regenerations!"

The Doctor stared, as he saw the ghosts of future incarnations screaming, as they were torn from Jodelex. They unraveled into a stream of time and artron, and flowed into Seo.

"The fruity burst of artron," Seo said, enraptured by it. "That deep, strong flavor of eons and eons…"

The Doctor began to run to her. What had he done? She'd been fighting this! And he'd provoked her into submitting to it. "I have to stop this."

Gaellian grabbed his arm and dragged him back. "Jodelex wanted her in a feeding frenzy, Doctor," she said. "The elixir he injected her with — it makes each death cause her to be mindlessly ravenous for more."

"What? Why?!"

"It was the only way to force her to pull out all the regenerations!" Gaellian said. "She wouldn't eat them, otherwise. She's too stubborn." She swallowed, hard. "Doctor, she'll eat Jodelex and all his regenerations — and when she's done… she'll lose any sanity she has left. She'll feed on everyone in this room, and then… everyone on the planet, above us."

The Doctor watched, as any concern or caring faded from Seo's face. Replaced by the hunger and the need for time. She even began to laugh, with pleasure, as she fed.

"And this was Jodelex's plan, then?" the Doctor fumed. "Keep her locked up in the catacombs of Gallifrey, like some monster, and feed her naughty Time Lords so she can steal their regenerations and spit each back out at him, once she's done?!"

Gaellian said nothing.

"No wonder Narvin wanted me to hide her from the Time Lords!" the Doctor shouted. "You're so wrapped up in your scheming and your corruption, you can't even see what you're doing! You're making her condemn the man she loves to death!"

The energy flow from Jodelex faded, just a little.

"Narvin?" Seo breathed. A look of horror washed across her face, as she started to realize what she was doing.

"Yes, Narvin," the Doctor said, relieved that there was still something of the normal her left, inside. "Seo, listen to me. If you kill Jodelex, you will condemn Narvin. I know you don't want to do that."

The energy flow ebbed, even more. One last regeneration, about to be yanked free, shuddered, and slithered back into Jodelex's body.

"Help me," Seo begged. "It's a chemical reaction, inside my head. A feedback loop. He's made it too strong — I can't control it."

"You must!" the Doctor said. "Please, Seo. Think of Narvin. Think of all the people you'll kill, on this planet's surface, if you go through with this. Your mind is strong."

"It would be stronger," Seo hissed, frustrated, "if you took out your sonic screwdriver and helped disrupt the feedback loop."

"Ah." The Doctor cringed, and held up his hands. "No sonic, I'm afraid. Jodelex took it."

"You are useless!" Seo gritted her teeth, then turned to the metal bars of their cell. "You better work fast, Doctor. With the chemical he injected into me, the moment I spread my feeding past Jodelex, I won't be able to reign it back in." She put a hand on the bars, and concentrated. "I do _not_ want to find myself surrounded by the corpses of everyone on this planet. Is that understood?"

Time seeped out of the bars, beneath her fingers. They rusted and crumbled, as Seo fed on their energy.

Then it spread.

Through walls, tables, machinery. Anything and anyone that got in its way. Gaellian began to scream, as she found her energies yanked out of her, and she struggled to cling onto her regenerations.

The only person not affected, in any way, by this drain… was the Doctor, himself.

Judging by the look of concentration on Seo's face, it was taking everything she had left in her, just to accomplish that.

"Move, Doctor!" Seo roared at him.

The Doctor sprinted to Jodelex, biting his lower lip so he could suffer through the intense heat still emanating from the Time Lord's body. Jodelex opened his eyes, staring at the Doctor in horror, mouthing a silent and terrified plea for help.

Gaellian was still screaming.

The Doctor grabbed the sonic. Turned it on Seo, buzzing it at her head.

Nothing.

"Different frequency," the Doctor said, adjusting it. "Think, Doctor, think! What frequency would disturb vampiric feedback loops?"

He tried another one.

Then another.

Unsuccessfully.

He could see Gaellian's first regeneration yanked free from her body, beginning to unravel in the air.

"No, wait, that's it!" the Doctor said. "She can unravel and absorb regenerations. That's the frequency!"

He shifted it to the frequency at which artron resonated.

And aimed it at Seo's head.

Seo cried out, stumbling backwards, hands clutching her head. The energy drain stopped. Gaellian's regenerations snapped back into her body. The last few threads of unabsorbed time retreated back to where they'd come from. Jodelex, gasping, found himself still alive — barely. And with one regeneration remaining.

"Easy, there," the Doctor said, to Jodelex, helping him up. "I think you'll need your TARDIS for this regeneration. Could be a rough one."

"I… was supposed… to live forever," Jodelex rasped. "It shouldn't… have happened… like this…"

"Yes, but that's what happens when you underestimate love," the Doctor said. He managed to grab his Time Vector Stabilizer from Jodelex's pocket. "You could push Seo almost to breaking point. You could call her a pet. Call her stupid. Threaten to lock her up and treat her like a monster. But threaten to kill the man she loves — and she will stop you."

"I'll help Jodelex," Gaellian said, stumbling over to help prop Jodelex up. She looked like she was mostly doing it so she'd have an excuse to get away from Seo — who was still doubled over, head in her hands.

The Doctor surrendered Jodelex to Gaellian. "Make sure Romana knows that he was planning to kill me and frame Seo for it," he said. "That should help Narvin's case… at least somewhat."

"Don't worry, I'm planning to tell the President _everything_ ," Gaellian said, helping Jodelex into his TARDIS. "Every single last…"

The Doctor stopped her. "Actually, I think a monster story isn't quite what Gallifrey needs, right now." He glanced at Seo. Then, in a whisper, added, "Better keep the fact that she can steal regenerations to yourself. Otherwise, some other Time Lord might think this was a good idea — and try again."

Gaellian frowned. But nodded, and accepted that the Doctor might have a point.

She helped Jodelex into his TARDIS, and took off, for Gallifrey.

The Doctor, meanwhile, went over to Seo. In a soft voice, asked, "Are you all right, now?"

Before he knew what was happening, Seo had leapt to her feet. "Why?!" she shouted, throwing herself at him. "Why did you provoke me?! Why did you make me do it?!"

The Doctor thought he might deserve that.

He'd honestly never expected her to react the way she did.

"I was trying to fight it!" Seo cried, grabbing him by the shirt and shouting into his face. There were tears in her eyes. "I was trying to keep control! Why did you make him call me 'Puppy?' Why did you make him threaten Narvin? Why…?!"

"I'm sorry," the Doctor said.

As if in response to that, Seo crumbled, burying her face in her hands. She was sobbing.

"What have I done?" she whispered, through tears. "What have I done?"


	14. Chapter 14

 

It took the Doctor a while to make sure the egg-shaped weapon could never be used again, then to get to the top of the mine shaft, and back into the normal dimensions.

Seo helped him, wordlessly. She looked numb.

And, to be honest, the Doctor wasn't really sure what to say to her, himself. She'd shouted at him for provoking her… and she was right. He'd seen her holding herself back, yet he'd purposely said things to make her attack Jodelex.

An hour later, Seo and the Doctor were back onboard the Doctor's TARDIS. The Doctor was under the console, reinstalling the Time Vector Stabilizer. Seo, meanwhile, sat on an armchair, elbows perched on knees, eyes fixed on the ground.

Neither spoke.

"I'm sorry," Seo said, at last. Breaking the silence.

The Doctor looked up, surprised. That was supposed to be _his_ line!

"What for?" he asked, emerging from the console. "You can hardly blame yourself for what Jodelex did to you. And _I_ was the one who provoked you."

"That's what I meant," Seo insisted. She looked up at him. "I didn't trust you. I didn't tell you what I could do. If you'd known… you'd never have said the things you did."

"Ah," the Doctor said, uneasily. He had a feeling he wasn't going to like this confession, much. "At a guess, this isn't the first time you've lost control, like this. Your sire did it to you, so you'd eat whole populations — long, long ago."

"No, Doctor," Seo corrected him. She shuddered. "My sire may have been a horrible, evil man — but he'd never have done _that_ to me."

Oh, dear.

The Doctor _definitely_ wasn't going to like this confession. If she'd actually _chosen_ to kill people, once upon a time…

"There's no redemption for me, after the things I've done — not even from God," Seo said. "My mother died, the day I was born. My father died, when I was five years old. My sire was all I had. I was raised surrounded by darkness, death, and pain." She looked away. Couldn't meet the Doctor's eyes. "At first, I just hated my life. Then, I hated all the people in it. Finally, I hated… everything. The whole universe. Every person. Every animal. Every planet. I hated it all… so much."

She clenched her hands into fists.

Still tense with the memory.

"I did some terrible things," Seo said. "Horrible things. Just… thinking of the scale of it… the number of civilizations I destroyed, the number of families I killed, the number of children I…" She shuddered. "I can't let that happen, again, Doctor. That kind of death. That kind of hatred. I can't ever let it happen, again."

The Doctor had a feeling she wasn't just talking about herself, anymore. There were, after all, other races who hated the universe, like that.

But the Doctor wasn't ready to let her past go, just yet.

"About… your rather unique powers," the Doctor pressed her. "Your ability to drain regenerations…"

"My powers," Seo repeated, with a sigh. She leaned back in her chair. "Yes. Everyone wants to know about _those_. The other vampires hated me for them, you know. I wasn't a 'real' vampire, in their eyes. Just… the pet. 'The Puppy,' they called me." She shot the Doctor a hard stare. "Not all of us get to choose our titles."

Puppy? Oh, dear.

No wonder that was a sore point.

"But I was so powerful," Seo told him. She closed her eyes. "Immune to sunlight and running water. Never needing an invitation to break into someone's home. I don't even need to bite, in order to feed."

"I noticed," the Doctor said.

"And, of course, I can drain more than just time and blood," Seo said.

"You can drain regenerations," the Doctor said.

"No," Seo corrected. "I can drain _anything_." Her eyes snapped open. "Regenerations. Your symbiotic link to the TARDIS. Even just your ability to speak a certain language or hum a certain tune."

Oh.

Now, that was interesting.

"Your original physiology blended with the vampiric mutation," the Doctor guessed. "It gave you powers far in excess of any normal vampire."

"No."

The Doctor frowned. "No?"

"It gave _him_ powers beyond any normal vampire," Seo clarified. "My sire. That's where all the abilities go. Not to me. To _him_."

"I… see."

"Any power I still have, remaining, is either due to a careless mistake on his part, when he tried to steal the power — or because he gave that power back to me," Seo said.

"So… although you stole Jodelex's regenerations," the Doctor clarified, "you can't use them. You can't even access them. The only person who can — is your sire."

"Well, he won't be accessing them, _now_ ," Seo said. "Not after what happened between us." She dismissed the Doctor's next question, before he could ask it. "That really _isn't_ important. Let's just say… he pushed me too far, one day — so I dealt with him."

Right, then.

"But in the old days… yes," Seo confirmed. "I drained abilities from people. Anything he wanted. He took those abilities from me. If I was good… he rewarded me by giving things back."

"I can't imagine that happened very often," the Doctor said, shaking his head. "He'd never risk giving you too much, for fear you'd rise up against him."

Seo went quiet.

Then, very softly, admitted, "There was a war."

Ah.

Of course.

The one instance where Seo's sire would have given her back her powers — because he'd need a soldier more than he'd need a pet.

"A big one, for him to risk giving you back your powers," the Doctor said. "Must have spanned a whole space empire."

"Not just space," Seo said. "Time."

The Doctor blinked.

Then blinked, again.

"Time?" the Doctor said.

"Yes, Time Lord," Seo confirmed, an edge to her voice. "You heard what I said. A war across time. Geeze, how familiar! Where have I heard that, recently?"

The Doctor said nothing.

"Granted, our war was just a drop in the bucket, compared to the one you're about to start," Seo said. She leaned forwards in her chair. "And I told you. I won't let it happen again, Doctor. All that hatred. All that pain. I'd rather die than let it happen, again."

The Doctor shuddered.

It couldn't be a coincidence. He didn't know what was going on, here, or how Seo was really involved… but Seo was up to her neck in all of this. She'd been used and manipulated… by more than just her sire or a few Time Lords with a grudge against Narvin.

 _This_ was _big_.

The Doctor turned back to the central console, and took off. "Narvin was right. I need to get you out of here."

Seo jumped to her feet. "What?!"

"You're in terrible danger, Seo," the Doctor replied, still programming the controls. He needed to find a place she couldn't leave… and where no one could find her. "It can't possibly be a coincidence that your personal history exactly matches the current political situation in the universe."

Seo tried to yank him away from the console, but the Doctor ducked out of her grasp and raced to the other side.

"You're a time sensitive," the Doctor continued. "You were, even before you were made a vampire. Right?"

"Maybe. Why?"

"In fact, I'm guessing you exist outside of time," the Doctor said. "When a timeline changes, you can still remember the original. Can't you?"

"What are you getting at?" Seo snapped.

The Doctor came towards her. Put his hands on her shoulders. "Seo, none of the rest of us remember the Olitzitz. But you do. And if you exist outside of time… that shouldn't be possible."

Seo hesitated.

"Unless," the Doctor continued, "the alteration to time that created the Olitzitz… also created you."

Seo's eyes went wide. She shoved his hands off her shoulders. "What are you saying?"

"What you said about hating the universe and wanting it to die," the Doctor said, "it's Dalek philosophy. The Daleks know about the Olitzitz. They know about you. In fact, they waited… what? Two weeks, before they sent you in for replication and extermination? That's not usual."

Seo said nothing.

"I think you're the result of some terrible Dalek alternate timeline," the Doctor said. "Part of a plan they're going to unleash onto the wider universe. Somehow, you fell through the cracks. You escaped."

"That's ridiculous," Seo said.

"Think about it," the Doctor urged her. "Think about everything you can do. Everything you know! Ability draining. Regeneration draining. Soldiering in a time war. Your exposure to Dalek philosophy. Your speciality with shockwave temporal physics — the art of the temporal explosion." He met her eyes. "Don't you think each and every one of those things might be helpful… in the upcoming Time War?"

Seo backed away.

Her hands were shaking.

"The Olitzitz War must have been a test, so the Daleks could try out their newly-created vampire army in a temporal context," the Doctor guessed. "Which means the rest of the vampire army must be on a Dalek base, right now, getting ready to—"

"They're not," Seo interrupted. "They're all dead."

The Doctor hesitated. "You're sure?"

Seo crossed her arms, and gave him a hard stare.

"Ah," the Doctor realized. "Of course you're sure. Because _you_ killed them."

Seo applauded his brilliance.

"I'd hope you did it to end your war," the Doctor said, "but I have a feeling you're going to say you killed them out of spite."

Seo shrugged. "War was long over, by then."

"Right, yes, you said you were a nasty piece of work, once," the Doctor muttered. "Families, civilizations, planets, your own kind…"

"Doctor, if I could take back my past," Seo assured him, "I'd save all the planets, the families, and the civilizations — a hundred times over. But the other vampires?" She shook her head. "They had it coming."

"Yes, yes, yes — but that's my point," the Doctor insisted. "You _can_ take it all back. Everything you've ever regretted. Every planet you've ever destroyed. You can undo it all!"

Seo stared at him. "What… do you mean?"

"It's an aberrant timeline," the Doctor said. "That means the CIA can swoop in, undo the damage, and put everything back the way it should be. Undestroy those planets. Unkill those people."

Seo looked away. "No, they can't."

"Of course they—"

"The events are fixed in time, Doctor," Seo interrupted. "Trust me. They can't."

"Impossible!"

"Possible," Seo countered. "Because _I_ fixed them."

The Doctor stared at her.

Floored.

"How?" he asked.

Seo cringed. "I… don't know."

Ah. That made sense.

"So it wasn't you, at all," the Doctor said. "Your sire used your powers to fix those points in time. And you've felt dreadfully guilty, ever since."

Seo said nothing.

"At any rate, it doesn't matter," the Doctor said. "Fixed or no, Time Lord science can still erase it. Of course, Narvin wouldn't dare wipe out the timeline if doing so risked destroying you… but the moment I get you somewhere safe, Narvin can give the order and undo everything you've ever done."

"Everything?" Seo checked. "Even… the things I did _after_ I ran away from my sire?"

"Everything."

"You're sure?"

"Positive."

Seo grabbed him by the shoulders, and spun him around to face her. "Then take me back."

The Doctor stared at her. "Sorry?"

"Take me back!" Seo said. "Do you think I'm going to just sit here, while everyone and everything I've ever known gets wiped out?" She shook her head. "If I'm the only thing keeping that timeline alive, then I'm going back."

The Doctor didn't reset the coordinates.

"I knew a woman, once," the Doctor said. "Elizabeth Klein. Product of a botched timeline in which the Natzis won World War II. She said the same thing to me. And I didn't let that stop me, either."

"I'll bet she wasn't an evil, regeneration-stealing monster, though," Seo pointed out. She leaned in. "Now, take me back."

The Doctor extricated himself from her grip, and folded his arms. Unwilling to budge.

"Don't make me hurt you, Doctor," Seo warned.

The Doctor laughed. "Hurt me? Like some kind of evil, regeneration-stealing monster? I've faced down evil many times, Seo. I've stared it in the eye." He stared her in the eye. "It doesn't look like you."

That was when her eyes seemed to burn him.

He tried to tear his eyes away from hers, but couldn't. He could feel an impossibly strong, impossibly terrible force snaking its way into his mind, and he couldn't get it out.

"Ever heard of the Riashta Horrin?" Seo said. "A race of extremely powerful hypnotists. Before I killed them and stole their abilities, they could burrow through anyone's mental defenses. Even… a Time Lord's."

She pressed even harder at his mind, and he cried out.

"If I'm the only thing stopping Narvin from wiping out that timeline," said Seo, "then you're taking me back into the middle of it. My children are in there. I'm not leaving them to die."

The Doctor found himself inputting new coordinates. Redirecting the TARDIS so it backtracked through the vortex, throwing them right back into the middle of things, again.

He tried to stop himself.

But the more he tried to stop, the harder she pushed him not to. She strengthen her grip over his mind, as he resisted, just to make sure he _couldn't_ redirect the TARDIS anywhere else — and tore through a layer of his mental defenses.

The Doctor recoiled with a scream, his hands on his head, overwhelmed by pain.

The next thing he knew, Seo's grip over his mind was gone. She was holding him, helping ease him into a chair, patting his head and soothing him, while cursing herself under her breath.

"Sorry! Sorry! I mean, just… you'll be fine, I promise," Seo told him. She looked around herself, worriedly. "There has to be a place to get a cup of water, on this ship. Or a Tylenol. Or anything, that could help…!"

The Doctor, his headache subsiding, broke into a laugh. "Evil, are you? Bit of a rubbish villain, if you ask me."

Seo froze.

"Oh, sure, you can go through the motions, well enough," the Doctor said. "I daresay you had to, as a child who grew up alongside a group of genocidal vampires. But you care rather too much for people, to be able to pull it off."

He took a deep breath.

Then sat up, straight.

"What children?" he asked her.

Seo grimaced. "Nobody."

"You said you should have trusted me, last time," the Doctor reminded her. "So trust me, now. What children? Where? How can we rescue them?"

"You can't," Seo told him. She grimaced. "Just… forget I said anything."

"Seo…"

"No, really, you can't," Seo insisted. "It's just… they're not exactly… people…" She hesitated. Then, a little quieter, added, "It's complicated."

The Doctor examined her, carefully. "Complicated?"

Seo considered. "Okay, not complicated, just… kind of… illegal."

Oh.

Marvelous.

"These… 'children'," the Doctor ventured. "Are they the reason Romana's dying?"

"No," Seo said, quickly.

"How can you be sure?" the Doctor asked. "I suspect they may have a larger part to play than you know."

"I can be sure, because I _know_ what's killing President Romana," Seo said. "I built it. And if I disconnect it… then _everyone_ will die. You. Me. Them. Romana. Everyone. Everything will fall apart."

Oh, dear.

This was starting to get terribly complicated. And the Doctor still felt like he was assembling a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

"Seo, you have to tell me precisely what's going on," the Doctor demanded. "Whatever it is you're hiding… I promise, I can help."

Seo said nothing for a long moment.

A very long moment.

She looked down at her hands, wiggling her fingers a little.

"You can trust me," the Doctor insisted, getting up. "You said, yourself, that you should have trusted me, before."

"I did, didn't I?" Seo confirmed. She flicked her eyes across the console room. "But you've got that symbol in here, too, just like all the other Time Lords. The symbol of Rassilon."

The Doctor frowned. Was she holding back on him, because she thought he was in favor of the Time War? "I may be a Time Lord, but…"

"I didn't even think to ask Narvin if he was a Time Lord, when I first met him," Seo cut in. "He said he was from Gallifrey, and I'd never heard of it. I fell in love with him before I ever got up the courage to ask… what that symbol meant." She turned to stare at it. "Rassilon. I remember that name. My father used it — all the time."

The Doctor was intrigued. "Did he?"

"As a swear word," Seo confirmed. "And a curse. 'Go burn in Hell with Rassilon' — stuff like that." Seo grimaced. "Imagine. The founder of your civilization — was a man my father considered to be 'Satan'."

Ah.

"Your… original race," the Doctor said, carefully, "before you became a vampire — it isn't one the Time Lords particularly like, is it?"

"I don't know," Seo admitted. "My father warned about the Time Lords. But he didn't really give me any details." She rubbed her arms, like she felt cold. "When Narvin heard about that, he looked into it. Next thing I knew, Narvin was deleting all Time Lord records that I was alive, and warning me not to tell anyone what my father was. He even said it was lucky I'd been bitten so young… since it mutated my genetics, meaning no scan could find or identify me." She gave a bitter laugh. "Lucky! My father murdered, my life destroyed, planets turned to ruin! Oh, yes, I feel so lucky."

The Doctor frowned. "Someone's hunting for you."

"Everyone hunts for people like me," said Seo. "That's why my father's people — and yours, too — used to track us down and wipe us out." She looked down at her hands, wiggling her fingers, a little. "We're all born broken, Doctor. That makes us dangerous."

She thought a moment longer.

Then… decided.

She held out her left hand, to the Doctor. "You're right — I should have trusted you, before," she said. "So this is me, trusting you, now. With _everything._ " She waved her hand at him. "Go on. Take it. Your left hand in my left hand."

He took it.

Nothing happened.

"It's just a hand, now," said Seo. "It didn't used to be. Before I became a vampire, it was… a gateway. A tunnel." She glanced at the TARDIS console. "It can be, again… but it might hurt."

"Hurt me, or hurt the TARDIS?" the Doctor asked. He remembered her reputation as a TARDIS-killer, and wasn't sure he wanted to take the risk.

"What? Oh, that. No, that was using my right hand," Seo said, waving at him. Then she hid it behind her back. "You don't get to use that one. Give someone my right hand… and they can steal my soul."

"Ah," said the Doctor — still not sure how her soul managed to destroy TARDISes, but he figured he'd work that bit out, later. "But your left…?"

"The left hand is for sharing," said Seo. "The right is for sacrifice." She nodded at the console. "A Time Lord mind is linked to a TARDIS. Your neural pathways have built-in filters. Your symbiotic link acts as a cushion. With a TARDIS, I can regain something of my heritage. With your mind, acting as a filter between me and the TARDIS… I can do it safely." She grimaced. "But… it will hurt. Sorry."

"Well, what's a little pain, in the long run?" the Doctor decided. He edged back towards the console. His free hand lingered over the controls.

"Just like that," Seo confirmed, following him — still holding his left hand in her own. "Use the telepathic circuits. That's easiest."

The Doctor placed his free hand down on the telepathic circuits.


	15. Chapter 15

"Coordinator," Romana said, as she entered his cell, flanked by guards. "I believe, in the old days, this is when we would have used the mind probe on you. For your sake, you should be happy I banned it."

"Romana, you _know_ I'd never betray Gallifrey," Narvin insisted.

"That's still to be decided," Romana replied. She dismissed the guards, and waited a moment, to make sure she and Narvin were alone. Then, when she knew they were, she lowered her voice, "Yes, Narvin. I know you're no traitor."

"Thank you, Lady President," Narvin said.

"But I also know you're hiding something from me," Romana said.

Narvin gave a long, heavy sigh. "Not exactly," he said. "It would be more accurate to say that Gallifrey has been hiding something from you. I stumbled onto the secret when I met Seo, and, for her sake, I've been making sure it remains well hidden."

"What secret?"

Narvin took a deep breath, preparing himself for what he was about to tell Romana — and its ramifications. "You think you're very progressive, allowing aliens onto Gallifrey," he said. "Allowing them into our Academy."

"A policy you disagreed with," Romana pointed out. Shook her head. "Shame on you, Narvin. Falling in love with an alien, while you still…"

"It's not radical," Narvin cut in. "It's happened, before, Romana. But no one on Gallifrey remembers it."

Romana stared at him.

"I had to keep her away from here," Narvin insisted. "I had to keep her secret. Her very existence is a threat to everything Gallifrey holds dear."

"Narvin, what are you talking about?" Romana demanded.

"You've heard of vampires — the Ancient Enemy," Narvin said. "But have you ever heard of the Ancient Ally?"

Romana shook her head. "We don't have an Ancient Ally."

"Oh, but we did. Once."

* * *

Colors swirled through the Doctor's mind, so fast, they nearly knocked him down. It was like he was completing a circuit, all that power flowing through him and yet he was unable to grasp any of it, himself.

"Sorry," Seo said. "I warned you it'd hurt." She closed her eyes, to concentrate. Her left hand glowed with a purple-silver shimmer. "Would you like to meet my father?"

"Because I'm right here," said a voice, stepping out of the TARDIS interior.

With every footstep he took, the TARDIS blew away, replaced by a wooden interior of a nicely decorated house, on a world the Doctor had never seen, before. The figure who stepped out seemed, at first, to be fuzzy, imperceptible, cast in shadows.

Then the Doctor blinked, and the figure came into perfect focus as a humanoid man. Blond hair, brown eyes. His face almost the exact same as Seo's — with some minor differences. In fact, he seemed so exactly like the person the Doctor had _expected_ to see as Seo's father that it felt… slightly… unsettling.

"You doubt your own eyes, Time Lord?" said Seo's father. "You're right to. This isn't what I look like."

"No, it's how I _expected_ you to look," the Doctor agreed. "A perception filter?"

Seo's father looked amused. "I don't need a filter. I _am_ perception."

He placed a hand on Seo's shoulder. His body flickered — revealing, just for a second, a dazzle of purple and silver… creating a display that, the Doctor realized, only made sense when expressed in complex, mathematical formulae.

Then, Seo's father returned to normal.

"Oh, how beautiful!" the Doctor cried. "Your body works as a natural perception filter. You have no shape except the one that others give you." He glanced around himself. "How did we get here? Why does it feel so…?"

"Real?" Seo's father asked.

The Doctor nodded. It didn't feel like Seo had just transferred an image or memory to his mind. The Doctor could feel the turn of this new planet, beneath his feet. He could feel the presence of a different time, all around him. It was almost like… he'd stepped back, through Seo's life, into her past.

Almost.

"The left hand contains wisdom," Seo whispered, eyes still closed. "The wisdom of the Tevin, across so many eons. This is more than just a memory. You are entering a moment of time. You step sideways, through my life and that of the Tevin, seeing what happened, as if you had been there."

"Or that's how it should have worked," Seo's father added. "Able to step through time, but unable to influence it."

The Doctor looked down at where his and Seo's hands were joined.

"That's… incredible," he breathed. He looked up at Seo. "So… I can step back, not just along your timeline, but along your people's timeline, and see everything that ever happened?"

Seo cringed, in pain.

Then a stab of pain shot through the Doctor's mind. And the whole landscape shifted around him.

The house, once cheery and new, was now old and abandoned, falling apart. Seo's father was gone… replaced by a pile of silvery-purple bones, lying on the floor, a small amount of decomposing flesh still clinging to them. His blood had dried onto the floorboards.

Another man — tall, dark haired, pale but human-looking, his eyes predatory and his jaw hard-set, stepped forwards and grabbed Seo by her right wrist. She snapped her eyes open, suddenly terrified.

"He's still in there, isn't he?" the man said, staring deep into Seo's eyes. "The alien bastard tricked me. All this time, I thought I'd killed him — but he was actually still alive. Just a little bit of his soul, tucked safely away inside his daughter."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Seo begged him — but it was a child's voice. "Please. Just let me go."

The man sprouted fangs. "No," he said. "I'm going to enjoy this. I'm going to make sure your father's really, _really_ dead."

Then he bit into her right wrist. Seo screamed.

"No!" the Doctor said, lunging for the man.

Suddenly, the room was back to how it had been, before. The Doctor hadn't moved. Seo's father was still standing behind her, resting his hand on Seo's shoulder. And Seo was perfectly fine — if a little shaken by the experience.

"Sorry," Seo told the Doctor, closing her eyes to help herself concentrate. "I'm not very good at this. I keep losing focus."

"Don't apologize," the Doctor said. "This is all… terribly interesting." He thought back to what he'd just seen. Clearly, when he'd asked his last question, that memory had flashed through Seo's head. An unhappy answer to his question. "Your sire cut the link, didn't he? He was so determined to kill your father… he cut the link you had to your people's past."

"More than that," said Seo's father. "Once, I was alive, inside her. We all were. Each generation of our family, one right hand after another — living, beyond death, within her beautiful little soul. We nurtured her. We healed her. When she was in her darkest days, alone and afraid, we comforted her. We gave her hope." He looked sad. "Until he killed us. Now, we're just a memory. And this entire projection — which should have been based on fact and history — is now based only on her memory."

"The left hand is for sharing, the right is for sacrifice," the Doctor remembered. He beamed. "That's brilliant! A race that gives itself up to the younger generation… and lives on, through them. Every moment of your lives can be relived inside her. Your timeline stretches, seamlessly, through the generations!"

"It should have, yes," said Seo's father, a little darkly.

"Until, of course, someone kidnapped Seo and sired her," the Doctor put in. "Yes. I can imagine she'd be traumatized by losing all of you. It'd be like a Time Lord losing all our past incarnations."

"Is that so, Gallifreyan?" Seo's father said, his voice even darker. "Do you really sympathize? Losing all that history? All that knowledge? All that past?" He glared at the Doctor. "I thought that was what you Time Lords were best at. Rewriting history."

* * *

"Gallifrey ended the Dark Times," Narvin said. "We know that."

"Everyone knows that," Romana agreed. "We defeated all evil across the universe, and brought the cosmos to some semblance of order."

"Alone?"

"Of course, alone," Romana said. "We had time travel. We had Rassilon. We had… well… technology that none of the rest of the universe could ever stand up to."

Narvin laughed, and shook his head. "Think about it, Romana. One Gallifrey, against the entire rest of the universe? It couldn't have been alone."

"The technology of Gallifrey," Romana insisted, "far surpassed…"

"How did we get the first TARDISes?" Narvin asked her. "Think about it. A TARDIS takes millions of years to grow. TARDIS coral is not indigenous to Gallifrey. So how did we get the first TARDISes, so quickly?"

"By… going back in time, planting the coral, and allowing it to grow over millions of years," Romana said.

"Going back in time… how?" Narvin asked. "Only a TARDIS could venture that far into the past, without burning out. A vortex manipulator burns out after about 200,000 years. A time ring burns out after 400,000 years. Nothing but a TARDIS could travel that far into the past — and if TARDISes hadn't been invented, yet…"

Romana hesitated.

"Time Lord history is a lie, Romana," Narvin told her. "Gallifrey was never alone, in the old days. We were never insular, the way we are, now. In the Dark Times, we had an alliance. A special partnership with a race at about the same technological level as us… but with a different type of technology. A race with a home planet where TARDIS coral had grown, naturally, for billions of years." He leaned forwards. "Have you ever heard of the Tevin?"

* * *

Seo frowned, a little confused. Then hissed, and flinched.

A shot of pain flowed through the Doctor, as well.

"Your TARDIS," Seo hissed, through her teeth, opening her eyes. "It's rooting around, inside my mind and memories."

The Doctor glanced over at the central console, which was — incongruously — still there. "Careful, Old Girl. We don't want to hurt her."

Then, the environment around them shifted.

Another house.

Another planet.

A table, now directly between the Doctor and Seo.

The Doctor could feel Seo's father sitting down, right next to where he stood. Seo's father looked at Seo, across the table, with all the love and tenderness he felt for the little girl.

"My people were once a good, peaceful people," said Seo's father. "We lived in fear of the Dark Times, but we survived because we found a race of allies. Both races helped one another. Both races grew together. We even discovered the secrets of time travel together. But one day… our allies decided they wanted those secrets all to themselves. They destroyed us. Wrote us out of their own history. Drove us insane."

"I've never remembered this, before," Seo said, staring at it.

"Looks like the TARDIS found something, digging around inside your memories," the Doctor said. He nodded at the alphabet blocks on the table, before them. "You must have been very young, when you heard it."

Seo's father wasn't finished, yet.

He bowed his head, in shame. Then, a little softer, added, "I once had a friend who trusted me. I helped him. Worked with him. We made so many advances, together. And I brought him down, just the way the Time Lords brought down my own people."

A flash tore through both the Doctor and Seo — one so bright and violent, that both of them had to let go of each other. The connection broke, in an instant.

The TARDIS console room snapped back to normal.

Except, now, the TARDIS console was making an discordant, angry sound. A warning flashed up on the scanner screen, in capital letters:

"WARNING: TEVIN INTERFERENCE DETECTED. ENGAGING RECALL CIRCUIT."

* * *

"Tevin?" Romana asked. She thought back. "Yes… it sounds familiar. A bedtime story, from when I was a Time-Tot."

Narvin looked at her sideways. "Really? Do you remember it?"

Romana struggled to do so. "Let's see… once upon a time, a Time Lord decided to seek his fortune, and ventured into the Outlands. There, he met a sprite that called itself a Tevin. The Tevin offered the Time Lord his left hand, and said that, with that hand, the Time Lord could have all the knowledge he needed to get a triple alpha at the Academy. But the Time Lord wanted more, and he was cleverer than the Tevin. The Time Lord eventually tricked the Tevin into surrendering its right hand. When he did, the Tevin screamed and disappeared, and the Time Lord returned home imbued with a great power, which he used to become President of the High Council."

"I see." Narvin cleared his throat, a little awkwardly. "You might not want to repeat that story. It's… actually… rather horrible."

"How so?" Romana asked. "They're just hands. Symbolic, I always thought. The left hand symbolizes deceit, and the right symbolizes the truth. By refusing the left hand, the hero rejects the lie, and instead, secures the truth."

"You've clearly never tried to shake Seo by her right hand," Narvin laughed. "She can get terribly offended." Narvin showed Romana his hands. "The Tevin hold their power in their hands. The left hand is for sharing — thoughts, memories, history, even simple abilities. But the right hand… contains their greatest power. And giving that power is their greatest sign of trust. After all, with a Tevin's right hand — you can drain that Tevin's soul."

Romana thought back to the story she'd heard, as a child.

She shuddered.

If she understood Narvin correctly, the bedtime story was about a Time Lord rejecting a Tevin's offer of mutual understanding, and instead stealing his power and his soul, murdering him, then returning to the capital, in triumph.

"It's said a Tevin never really dies," Narvin explained. "They weave their timeline into the next generation, sacrificing their own souls to weave them into their children's. The action connects their timelines together, creating a seamless timeline that leads all the way back to the earliest Tevin in the universe. Using the left hand, they can relive every and any moment in their timeline — and, thus, in their people's history."

"That's… quite beautiful," Romana said.

"Yes," Narvin said. "But imagine if someone were to wipe out part of that history. Imagine what kind of pain that might cause to a race composed of nothing but history."

Romana could imagine.

Every Tevin would split apart into probabilities. Their timelines would fill with discontinuities and chaos. Any sections of the timeline that didn't fall victim to the Blinovitch limitation effect would be distorted and painful.

"It'd drive them insane," Romana said. She had a horrible feeling she knew where this was going. "Don't tell me that, if they were once our allies, but we don't remember them…"

"That we did that to them?" Narvin nodded. "Yes. We did. Some Time Lords didn't like the idea of aliens on Gallifrey. And one, in particular, was very against it. When he wove his Web of Time… he wove the Tevin out of it. Trapped them on their home world, purged it of TARDIS coral, and sealed them away for all eternity — past, present, and future. Thus, giving the Time Lords a past free of aliens on Gallifrey."

"That's horrid."

"Of course, there's more to it than that," Narvin continued. "Romana, the Tevin don't exist fully in our dimensions. That's how they get their greatest power. It's said that, in the right circumstances, and given a substance of exactly the right temporal and psychic form, they can use their right hand to alter reality itself."

Romana stared at him. "Reality?"

"I've seen it," Narvin replied. "I know it's true."

"How could you have seen it?" Romana asked. "The Tevin must have disappeared, after we imprisoned them. There can't… possibly… be…"

She trailed off.

"Seo," Romana realized. "She's a Tevin."

"Not quite," Narvin said. "But her father was."

Romana frowned.

"No one ever wrote down what the temporal and psychic receptacle was, that would allow the Tevin to control reality," Narvin went on. "Ancient Time Lords, presumably, wished that fact to remain obscure to future historians. I stumbled upon it by random chance. Seo touched the central console of my TARDIS, and the ship convulsed. When we experimented a little further, we soon found that she could link up to it. In fact… my TARDIS could even restore some of the Tevin abilities that she'd lost, when she became a vampire."

"And, presumably, it's this link-up that's been killing our TARDISes," Romana said.

Narvin blew a breath out of his cheeks. "That's… not entirely her fault," he said. "Like I said — she's not a Tevin. Her father was. Her mother was human."

"Which makes her half-Tevin," Romana said.

Narvin nodded. "And that makes her… how does she put it? 'Broken'."

* * *

"Tevin?" the Doctor asked, looking at the warning on the scanner. "Funny. Never heard of them."

"My father," said Seo. "He… was a Tevin."

"And so are you," the Doctor added.

Seo shook her head. "I'm broken. I told you."

The TARDIS gave a number of clunks, as it tried to engage a recall circuit that it didn't have.

"Well, whoever the Tevin are, the TARDIS has certainly heard of _them_ ," the Doctor said. He glanced at Seo. "I take it you've never seen this happen, before?"

Seo shook her head.

"But it's not the first time you've hooked yourself up to a TARDIS," the Doctor continued. He brushed his hands over the central console. "Yes… that confirms it."

"What?"

"That it's not your interaction with a TARDIS that's the problem," the Doctor said. "This is all a reaction to the fact that we've worked out something about Gallifreyan history that the other Time Lords don't want us to know."

Quickly, he checked the TARDIS databanks. Skimmed through the information presented to him, on the screens.

"Tevin," the Doctor read, aloud. "A powerful race from the Dark Times, imprisoned and insane. Do not approach. Do not allow anywhere near a TARDIS. If a Tevin is encountered, it is every Time Lord's duty to…" He frowned. "Oh, dear."

"To…?" Seo asked.

"…kill it on sight," the Doctor continued, "as decreed by the Great Lord Rassilon." He scowled. "Rassilon. You know, for a man who tried to turn me into a monster, I didn't think he could fall any lower in my estimation. But it appears… I was wrong."

"Narvin warned me not to tell any Time Lords what my father was," Seo remembered. "He warned me never to even set foot on Gallifrey. He sounded terrified, when he said it."

"Narvin might have had a point," the Doctor said. "I'd follow that advice, if I were you."

The TARDIS scanner screen went blank.

Then, it reported, "RECALL CIRCUIT DISCONNECTED. ENGAGING MEMORY WIPE PROTOCOLS."

The Doctor laughed and clapped his hands, delighted. "Oh, marvelous!" he cried. "They must _really_ not want us to know about the Tevin, if they're willing to wipe our memories!"

"Doctor!" Seo said, edging away from the console. "I don't want my memory wiped. My memory is the only existence my father has, left."

"Yes, good point," the Doctor decided, punching buttons on the console. He couldn't help but grin. "I wonder what'll happen, once I deactivate the memory wipe. Do you think they'll try to kill us?"

"Kill us?!" Seo cried.

"We've just cottoned onto a very big, very juicy secret from Gallifrey's history," the Doctor said, flipping levers and pressing buttons. "They don't just slap you on the wrist, when you do something like that."

With the last press of a button, the memory wipe disengaged, and the console ceased its discordant whirring and grinding. The TARDIS returned to normal.

"Seems the Old Girl tapped into something, in your memory, that triggered an ancient recall protocol," the Doctor mused. "How exciting!"

"Exciting?" Seo shook her head. "Doctor, if that memory's right — and from the way your ship panicked, I'm guessing it is — then your people drove the Tevin insane and destroyed their society, just so you could monopolize time travel!"

"Ah — not _all_ my people, I expect," the Doctor countered. He gestured at the TARDIS databanks. "Just… one Time Lord. A rather despotic, extremely unpleasant Time Lord."

Seo frowned. "Rassilon."

"Rassilon," the Doctor confirmed. "A man with secrets. A man with access to technology that — even with all the advances on time travel theory that we've made, through today — no Time Lord scientist can even start to decipher."

"Almost like the technology was stolen," Seo whispered. "Stolen from the Tevin."

"Your people," the Doctor confirmed. "Yes."

Seo shook her head. "They're not my people. I keep telling you." She sighed. "My father was very clear about that. His race didn't do interbreeding. If he ever brought me back to his home planet… they'd declare me broken and dangerous, and destroy me."

The Doctor looked at her, askance.

"I'm starting to think 'broken' has some technical alternate definition, in Tevin culture," the Doctor said, "that I don't know about."

Seo stepped forwards, and showed him the underside of her right wrist — a terrible scar still present, across the skin. "The half-Tevin are always born broken, Doctor. The real Tevin… well, they're not exactly higher dimensional, but they can move in the higher dimensions, and that gives them certain unique biological traits. Full-blooded Tevin physiology makes it hard for them to pass on their greatest powers to any non-Tevin, and possible for them to fight back, if someone tries to force them."

The Doctor took her wrist in his hands. Inspected the scar.

It looked like the remains of so many teeth marks, scarring the surface. Like someone had continually bit into her right wrist, over and over again. Greedily drinking in her power — and, if she was to be believed, her soul.

"I tried, so hard, to fight back," Seo said. "But I couldn't — because I'm not a full Tevin. When my sire was afraid I might steal the ability to fight back… he locked my abilities so they could only transfer into _his_ biodata. He took away the power of my hands — and made sure only his teeth could dig my power out."

She tugged her hand away.

"Like Narvin said… in a way, I'm the luckiest half-Tevin of them all," Seo concluded. "I lost everything that ever meant anything to me. But I also lost what made me dangerous. I lost the power of my hands… and the ability to let others steal that power."

"Except inside a TARDIS," the Doctor noted. "Then, your powers come back."

Seo gave a guilty shrug. "Yes, well… three out of ten times, it works perfectly and none of the TARDISes get fried. So… sure! Problem solved. Just sweep the last seven TARDISes under the rug."

"Ah. TARDIS-killer."

"Like I said… I'm broken," Seo told him. "I think Tevin powers are supposed to compliment a TARDIS, but… I'm not a real Tevin. I must be missing some kind of psychic buffer, inside my head. When I link up to a TARDIS, I kind of… short-circuit it. Fry it. Seven times out of ten." She shrugged. "Still. Three out of ten isn't bad."

The Doctor patted his TARDIS console. "I think I'll continue to keep you at a distance from the Old Girl, in that case."

* * *

"She's half-Tevin," Narvin told Romana. "If the Tevin have multi-dimensional aspects, that makes Seo a sort of… halfway point between the multi-dimensional laws of the universe, and our own."

"You mean that, in the wrong hands," Romana said, "she can transfer multi-dimensional abilities to… just… anyone? Human. Sontaran. Time Lord…"

"Or even a Dalek," Narvin said. "Yes."

Romana didn't like that thought.

"A half-Tevin could, in theory, make a person completely invincible," said Narvin. "Invulnerable. Immortal. And probably very nearly omnipotent. Give someone like that access to a TARDIS…"

"…and they could also manipulate reality," Romana breathed. "The damage would be incalculable." She shook her head, barely able to take this all in. "You realize that makes your friend really rather dangerous?"

"Well, it would have… if her sire hadn't taken away the power of her hands, when he made her a vampire," Narvin qualified. He sighed. "But, yes, you're right. In some ways… Seo's still dangerous. That's why I needed her to go with the Doctor."

Romana frowned. "You mean, you _wanted_ …?!"

"Naturally," Narvin interrupted. "You didn't think I'd go through all this without planning ahead meticulously, did you?" He glanced around himself, nervously, then dropped his voice to a whisper. "There's something terrible going on, Romana. And the only one who can stop it… is the Doctor."

Romana sat down, opposite Narvin.

"Tell me everything," she demanded. " _Everything_ , Narvin. Whatever you've just dropped the Doctor into — I intend to know all about it."


	16. Chapter 16

The Doctor clapped his hands, in excitement. He was finally starting to unravel this mystery — and it seemed it went far deeper than even Seo had ever suspected.

"All right, then! What have we got, so far?" The Doctor counted off facts on his fingers. "One. The Olitzitz. A race that shouldn't have existed, in a war that shouldn't have happened — except you can remember them. And so can the Daleks. Two. Your personal history is suspiciously similar to the current political situation. Three. Your memories. Narvin didn't want you asking too many questions — and this could be why. He didn't want you to find that memory about what the Time Lords did to the Tevin. He might even have been the one to blank your memory of it, in the first place."

"Why?" Seo asked.

"Because Time Lords never want to accept how corrupt they really are," the Doctor replied. "They'd kill you, rather than risk you revealing their secrets — and Narvin doesn't want you dead."

"Oh," Seo said, a little sheepishly. "Right. Yeah. I should have guessed that."

"Four," the Doctor continued. "You said you knew why Romana was dying." He gave her a hard, cold glare. "And you still haven't told me, yet."

Seo cringed. "Right…"

"Is it related to this whole 'Tevin' business?" the Doctor asked. Then, frowning, answered himself, "Oh, of course it's related! Why wouldn't it be?"

"It's related… kind of," Seo said. Hesitated. "I mean… it's… complicated… and I don't completely understand it, myself, but…"

"Has someone else worked out that you have dangerous memories?" the Doctor interrupted. "Is that what this is? Are they trying to marginalize you?"

"You see…" Seo started, trying again.

"But what would they want with Romana?" the Doctor continued, still absorbed in his own thoughts. "Are they simply trying to find an excuse to assassinate her? Are they trying to use you to discredit her, somehow? Or are they…?"

"Doctor!" Seo interrupted.

The Doctor looked up at her. Shaken from his own thoughts. "Interrupting is terribly rude, you know," he pointed out.

"I met one," Seo told him. "A few decades ago." She paused. "And a second one, a few hours ago, actually. But that one wasn't the important one."

The Doctor frowned. "One… what?" Then, realizing… "A Tevin?"

Seo nodded.

"And it didn't try to kill you?" the Doctor asked.

"Surprisingly not," Seo confirmed. "Neither Tevin did. Although, the second did want to kill _you_ , for some reason."

The Doctor put a hand on his chest. "Me? Why?"

"I have absolutely no idea," Seo told him. "He wouldn't tell me." She dismissed this. "But he's not the important one."

"Easy for you to say," the Doctor said. "He's not trying to kill _you_."

"For all I know, he _is_ trying to kill me, now, because I wouldn't kill you!" Seo said. "But it's still not important! Doctor, a few decades ago, I met a Tevin who didn't just talk and threaten. He brought me to this strange, beautiful, ancient place. He gave me some of my powers back — well, as long as I used them on the artifact. I was the only one who could fix the artifact, he said. It was broken… like me. But if I could fix it, I could save everyone. The whole universe."

"Whole universe?" The Doctor shook his head. "Utter rot."

Seo grinned at him. "You wouldn't say that if you'd seen it."

"And this artifact of yours is what's killing Romana?" the Doctor asked.

"Romana is President of the Time Lords," Seo told him. "The most powerful person in the universe. Anything that saves the universe will, by its very nature, wind up involving her."

"Like I said," the Doctor repeated. "Rot."

"But it's more than that," Seo said. "When she started dying… the artifact began malfunctioning. I got desperate. In fact, I'm still desperate. Narvin says that until I save President Romana, the artifact will never work properly. I'll never be able to save the universe."

"And just who says the universe even needs saving?!" the Doctor cried. The whole thing sounded ludicrous to him. "This universe has been around a bit, you know. It can look after itself."

Seo leveled him with a hard, cold glare.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"Materialize," Seo said.

The Doctor shook his head, with a little laugh. "I beg your pardon?"

"Materialize," Seo said. She checked some readouts on the console. "Right about… now. That'll be close enough."

The Doctor threw the materialization lever.

The first thing he saw on the scanner screen, when he was in normal space, again, was a huge temporal anomaly. And, drifting just beside it, a gigantic Dalek battleship.

"That's where the Olitzitz lived," Seo said, pointing at the anomaly. "Much good their war did them. All that's left, in there, is ruined timelines and torn up planets." She pointed at the battleship. "And… waiting on its outskirts… is the next war."

The Doctor said nothing.

"What am I saving the universe from, you ask?" Seo said. "Are you really that blind, Time Lord? I'm saving it from _you_."

"This isn't my war," the Doctor insisted.

"Said the Lusitania to the German U-Boat," Seo replied. They could already see the Dalek ship opening its missile launchers. "Now, if you don't want this to be the first shot of the next Time War… you better move."

The Doctor tried the dematerialization lever.

Nothing happened.

"Oh, dear," the Doctor said. He raced around the console. "Temporal stasis fields. Time distortion. Unstable chronon particles…"

The TARDIS gave a pathetic whine.

"Your little war didn't half muck up local space-time, did it?" the Doctor said. "The Old Girl doesn't like it one bit."

"That's exactly my point!" Seo insisted. "We didn't even use temporal grenades or time destructors or anything, in the Olitzitz War. We just created paradox after paradox after paradox. And that created _this_ whole mess. With you and the Daleks throwing around time as a weapon, who knows what kind of chaos you could both…?!" She trailed off. Blinked. "What do you mean, doesn't like it? You mean the ship can't dematerialize?"

"Nope," the Doctor said, trying a different set of levers. "Shields are at minimum, too, looks like. All the TARDIS' power is being diverted to trying to keep herself stable in an unfriendly environment."

He shrugged, then grinned at Seo, expectantly.

"For someone whose death is about to start the Time War, you seem remarkably calm," Seo accused.

"Well, perhaps that's because I've worked out your secret," the Doctor replied.

Seo frowned. "Secret?"

"Earlier, in that mining ship, you knew the exact frequency needed to break into a TARDIS," the Doctor said. "And you programmed that ship to break through numerous Time Lord defenses, easily. Almost as if… you'd done that sort of thing, before."

Seo looked over at the scanner screen. Watched the Dalek ship, as it launched a temporal missile.

They had a minute, max, before impact.

"Saving the universe, you said," the Doctor pointed out. "Desperate. The Lusitania allusion. You've got a way out of this situation, don't you? Somehow, you've been targeting TARDISes in exactly this position… and moving them out of danger. To stop the first shot of the Time War."

Seo didn't answer.

"So," the Doctor said, casually. "How many times have you done it, so far?"

Seo stared him right in the eye. "Seven."

The Doctor went silent.

Seven near-war incidents. And seven TARDISes that Seo said she'd destroyed.

"Ah," the Doctor said. "This would be your… very good reason, then?" He began frantically poking at the controls. "Come to think of it… maybe I _could_ get the Old Girl to cooperate."

"I don't think we have time for that," Seo told him. She was already approaching the central console. "De-electrify it. I'd rather not die, in the process of saving your life."

"And let you kill my ship? I think not," the Doctor said. But he really _was_ getting nowhere, trying to move his ship from this area of space-time. Not even the HADS was working! What could he use? Think, think, think…!

"Time Lord neural pathways!" the Doctor said. He offered her his left hand, again. "You can use me to soften the blow. Let the Old Girl survive."

Seo raised up her right hand. "This hand is me, Doctor," she told him. "The moment you feel the kind of power it has, you'll want more of it. If you take any of it for yourself… I'll wind up your slave, while you go insane." She shuddered. "It's happened, before."

The Doctor switched, and offered her his right hand. "And if I don't take the power? Just let it flow through me?"

"Then you could die!" Seo said. "The power could fry your brain!"

" _Could_ die," the Doctor pointed out. "But possibly not." He grinned, placing his free hand on the telepathic circuits. "I like those odds."

Seo shook her head.

But every second she delayed, was a second the missile got closer. And she knew it.

"I don't want to kill you," Seo insisted.

"And I don't want to die," the Doctor agreed. "Nor do I want my fabulous ship to die." He wiggled his fingers at her. "Take my hand?"

Seo stared down at her right hand. Pain spread across her face. "It's the only part of the original me left, Doctor. The most precious thing I have."

"And I'll be very careful with it," the Doctor promised. He met her eyes with his. "Trust me."

She waited a few seconds longer. Until the moment before the missile was about to strike.

Then, knowing her time was up, she grabbed his hand in hers.

The Doctor screamed.

In agony.

The whole TARDIS flashed in a brilliant spark of lights and purple haze. The wheezing and groaning sound of the TARDIS morphed into a chirp, then a laugh. Around them, the console room shifted into every single version of the console room, one after another after another, and the console, itself, began to both melt — and not melt — at the same time.

That was all the Doctor had time to take in, before the searing pain in his head got too much to bear.

And he collapsed.


	17. Chapter 17

"Stupid, stupid Time Lord!" Seo said, catching him as he fell. The whole console room stabilized around them, going back to normal, as the magic happened — yet again. And the TARDIS found herself in another location. "I said it was dangerous! I warned you…!"

Too late, now.

He wasn't breathing. His hearts weren't beating.

Seo scrambled to perform CPR. He wouldn't be able to regenerate; she already knew that. His mind would be in too much shock, from what she'd just done, to trigger the process. If she didn't get at least one of his hearts beating…!

The Doctor gasped.

Seo gave a sigh of relief, as she felt him start breathing, again. And, better still, felt his hearts — first one, then the other — begin to beat.

Thank the universe for that!

Still, alive wasn't the same as in good shape. And since Seo had never done anything risky as this, before, she had no idea what lingering effects it could have.

What if she'd given him brain damage?

Or burned out his nervous system?

"I need to get you to a hospital," Seo muttered. "Just in case this is a death coma, not a healing coma." She improvised a gurney, from things she found around the TARDIS, and hauled him up, on top of it.

She ran to the double doors, so she could throw them open and wheel him through.

"Good thing I reality-jumped us to a planet I know well," Seo said, fishing in her pocket and bringing out the TARDIS key she'd stolen from him, earlier.

She didn't notice, until it was too late, that something in her back-pocket had started to 'ping', over and over again. It was a small device, the size and shape of a compact makeup kit.

When she did finally notice, TARDIS key still in hand, she was right next to the doors — about to open them.

She pulled the pinging device out, frowning. Opened it.

Inside, there was no makeup. Just a series of blinking lights and complex machinery that comprised her TARDIS teleport device — the one she had built with Narvin, and which she now used whenever she needed to teleport herself into the center of TARDISes in distress.

The teleport was blinking, furiously.

"What?" Seo squinted at it. "But you can't just activate for no reason. It's not…!"

The teleport made a loud slurp sound, and Seo felt herself pulled inside out. As she vanished, she lost her grip on the TARDIS key and the teleport device, both of which clattered to the ship's floor, the teleport device smashing into a million pieces, as it did.

The next thing she knew, Seo found that she'd been whisked out of the TARDIS, and onto the surface of the planet she'd reality-jumped them to.

She was surrounded by an armed militia group, all pointing energy rifles at her head.

And, in the midst of them, was an alien that Seo recognized, all too well.

"This wasn't exactly the welcome I was expecting," Seo muttered. She leveled a dark stare at the alien. "What are _you_ doing here, Liantor? We're pretty far from your home planet, for this to just be some picnic."

Around her, she heard the sound of the rifles being cocked and readied to fire.

"Orders from my father, Grand Statesman Ergun," said Liantor, a red-eyed, yellow-skinned alien with horns. He looked her up and down. "He always suspected the truth, but here's the proof for all to see! A TARDIS teleport device, built with Gallifreyan technology — and, turns out, it's yours."

Seo sighed.

So much for finding help for the Doctor. She could predict the rest of her day, now.

(She just hoped he _was_ in a healing coma.)

"What are you going to do?" Seo asked. "Let your father lock me up and torture me, as per usual? Or are you going to drag me in front of the Pacifists and tell them that I'm a Gallifreyan spy — which, for the record, I'm not?"

"I'm simply obeying orders, Seo," Liantor replied. "Everything I do, here, I do at Grand Statesman Ergun's command. And he was quite clear about what to do with you — and your Time Lord." He turned to the other militiamen. "Tie her up. If she struggles or tries to run away, shoot her."

The guards wrenched her arms back, tying her wrists together, tightly. Seo knew better than to struggle and risk a shot to the head.

"There's someone out there who needs my help," Seo said, instead. "He's sick. Maybe dying. I have to get him to a hospital!"

Liantor laughed. "Nice try. But you've used that one, before."

Oh.

Yeah. Seo had forgotten about that. She'd used that line to escape from him, ages ago.

"You _will_ tell us everything, Seo," Liantor told her, "and accede to all our demands. Or things will get very nasty, very quickly."

* * *

The Doctor awoke with a start. Found himself on a makeshift gurney — breathing fine, both hearts beating, and no lasting damage. He looked around the console room. "Seo?"

No answer.

"Well, I'm not dead, so that's something, at least," the Doctor said. He climbed off the gurney, raced over to the TARDIS console. Inspected it. "Old Girl's still alive. And nothing stolen, this time." He checked the flight path. "Coordinates… are…" He blinked. "Gibberish." Leaned in, squinting at the words on the screen. "'Tevin Reality Alteration Parameters Engaged'? That's a new one on me."

He turned, to walk towards the doors. But stopped, as he noticed the dropped TARDIS key, and the remains of an electronic gadget, smashed against the floor.

"Is that a teleporter?" The Doctor leaned down, picking through the remains. "Yes. TARDIS teleporter. Built with Gallifreyan tech — which means Narvin's involved. This must be what she's been using, to allow her to break into TARDISes."

Looked like it only let her _into_ TARDISes, though. It shouldn't have actually been able to get her _out_ of TARDISes.

"And yet… it feels like she's been teleported out of here," the Doctor noted. He could taste the tang of a teleport signal in the air. It always set his teeth on edge. "So someone must have flipped the polarity, at the opposite end."

If the dropped items were any indication, the Doctor guessed that Seo had been taken by surprise, too. That would explain why he'd woken up on a gurney; she must have intended to get him some help, but been whisked away before she made it to the door.

He pocketed the key and the components of the destroyed teleporter device, then crossed to the double doors.

Flung them open.

Outside, the Doctor could see a lush, verdant planet. Birds chirped in the trees. Wind whistled through leaves. A gentle sun shone down on the landscape.

It looked like something of a paradise.

"Well, if this is where she brought me, she must have had a reason," the Doctor decided. He headed outside. "Perhaps she has friends, here. And that means — they can help me find her."


	18. Chapter 18

Seo, now tied up and restrained, was seated on a chair, still surrounded by armed militiamen. She was already trying to think up an escape plan that wouldn't get her shot or killed.

"Find the key for the Time Lord's vehicle," Liantor commanded his men. "She'll have it about her, somewhere, I'm sure."

Except… Seo knew she didn't. She'd dropped it, back in the Doctor's TARDIS.

She was grateful for that, now.

"Nothing, Supreme General, sir," the military reported, after searching her, thoroughly.

Seo laughed. "Supreme General! Wow, Liantor, your daddy's been coming up with all kinds of big scary titles for you."

"Silence!" Liantor shouted at her. Turned to his men. "Send for the rest of the fleet. Take the planet. If the Time Lord isn't here, yet, he'll arrive soon, looking for her. I'm sure."

Seo's eyes went wide.

Take the planet?

Damn, damn, damn!

"So _this_ is what your father's gigantic military buildup was for," Seo accused. "So much for 'self-defense'! How long have you been planning this invasion? Years? Decades?"

Liantor's face remained stony and disciplined — a mask that expressed nothing. "When the people of this planet hear the truth, Seo, they'll welcome our invasion. Even the Queen will turn against you and embrace us."

Seo stifled a laugh.

"This planet is, already, a monarchy," Liantor began.

"A constitutional monarchy," Seo corrected. "With a parliament."

"Not for much longer. They'll see things our way, soon enough." Liantor tested her restraints, himself, making sure they were tight. "Democracy is a failed system of government. My father was right to abolish it, back home."

"Ergun is destroying your planet, Liantor!" Seo snapped. "I won't let him destroy this one, too."

Liantor smacked her across the face. "That's Grand Statesman Ergun, to you," he said. "My father is a war hero. Address him with respect."

Seo swallowed back the pain. "The Olitzitz War's made your father delusional, Liantor," she said, trying to make him see sense. "Think for yourself! Think beyond what your father tells you! Your people are dying. Your world is falling apart! And your father's so obsessed with what happened to him, during the war, he can't see…"

"He was a war hero," Liantor interrupted, suddenly in her face. "He fought for the Olitzitz." He pointed one of his three fingers in her face. " _You_ never fought by his side."

Seo met his gaze with defiance. "I _did_ fight in the Olitzitz War. For a lot longer than Ergun."

Liantor studied her carefully, dissecting her with his eyes. Then, with a small smirk, simply said, "I'll bet you did."

He turned away.

Stepped back, eyes still fixed on her.

"You like dictating how governments — like my father's — should work, don't you?" Liantor said. "Just so long as no one _knows_ you're dictating. So long as no one suspects that _you're_ the one bribing politicians or manipulating senators or rigging elections. All hail Seo! The secret autocrat. The hidden tyrant."

"I don't do that," Seo insisted.

"An ambitious woman," Liantor remarked, his smug smile increasing. He clasped his hands behind his back. "No wonder you spread your legs for any passing Time Lord. With the Time Lords' power… you could conquer any planet you wanted."

Seo stared at him. For a second, she couldn't even speak.

" _Excuse_ me?!" she cried.

"Or is it just for _one_ Time Lord?" Liantor asked. He stepped towards her. "Do you only spend long, passionate hours with Narvin? He's an important man on Gallifrey, so I hear."

"My love life is none of your goddamn business!" Seo snapped. Her eyes narrowed. "But, even so, I'd never resort to sleeping with someone, just to get what I want!"

"A woman like you, with a body like yours, doesn't get to where she is, now, without using her assets to her advantage," Liantor said.

If Seo hadn't been restrained, she would have smacked him for that remark.

"You don't have a clue what a woman like me is capable of," Seo snarled at him.

Liantor paused, a moment. Thinking this through.

Then nodded, soberly. "That I can believe," Liantor said. He turned away from her. "It's a shame I have orders to break you. In many ways — I admire you. You have a body men would kill for — but you never use it to get what you want; you'd rather use your brain. You're ambitious, corrupt, and greedy, but still dedicate your life to a thankless humanitarian mission that's ultimately doomed to leave you penniless, powerless, and possibly even dead. Your resilience to torture is impressive. And I've yet to find a prison that can hold you."

Seo kept working on untying herself.

Yeah, she'd figured Liantor had orders to 'break' her.

It felt like Grand Statesman Ergun couldn't even _think_ about Seo, these days, without commanding someone to torture her mercilessly.

"It's always a shame, when I have to torture you," Liantor lamented. "I'd really rather forgo it."

But he still did it.

Every time.

"I can't tell your father what he wants to know," Seo said. "He can torture me all he likes. I can't give him the answer."

Liantor nodded, solemnly. He seemed to almost be expecting this.

The smug smile remained.

"You _can_ , but you won't," Liantor corrected. He looked away from her. "Yes. I wouldn't have expected anything less of you. You're a tough nut to crack, Seo. I like that."

Seo gave a frustrated sigh. "It's more complicated than that."

"I'm sure it is." Liantor paced the room, his eyes fixed on the ground. "You know… my father doesn't remember you, from the Olitzitz War. No veteran does. My father has scoured war documents, looked through Olitzitz records, checked every corner of this galactic sector, trying to find a single mention of you, in that war. And… guess what?" He opened his hands, to show they were empty. "Nothing."

Seo said nothing.

"There are rumors you never fought in it, at all," Liantor said. "And that you're just making up your war record, because you're a Gallifreyan spy infiltrating the Pacifists."

"I'm not a Gallifreyan spy," Seo sighed. "The Gallifreyans didn't even know the Olitzitz _existed_ until a day ago."

"You say that," Liantor replied, "but you're surrounded by Gallifreyan technology, you were teleported here out of a TARDIS… and…" Liantor leaned in, to whisper in her ear. "…you're sleeping with the Coordinator of the Celestial Intervention Agency."

Seo gritted her teeth.

"I can just imagine the two of you, wrapped in each other's arms," Liantor said, "sweaty, grunting, full of…"

"Liantor, if you don't want me to punch you in the face the moment I escape," Seo warned, "you'll get your head out of the gutter and stop fantasizing about my sex life."

Liantor seemed to get the message.

He stood up, straight.

"I don't care if you're a Gallifreyan spy, or not," Liantor said. He unholstered his gun. "You may not care about _all_ Gallifreyans, but you certainly care about _one_. And when I get my hands on him… you'll shatter apart like glass."

Seo quirked an eyebrow. "Narvin? Good luck finding him."

"Seeing as you just vanished from his TARDIS, I'm sure he'll land on this planet, soon enough," said Liantor. "He won't leave here, without you — and you won't leave here, until my fleet abandons its invasion. I'll find your lover, eventually. It's only a matter of time."

Vanished from his TARDIS?

Oh, damn!

Liantor thought Seo had arrived here with Narvin! And, what with Time Lords changing bodies all the time, Liantor wouldn't even realize she hadn't. He'd scoop up the first Time Lord he found, and assume he was Narvin.

Seo was condemning an innocent man — the Doctor — to torture and maybe even death, for no good reason!

What a disaster!

"He's not my lover," Seo insisted.

"We both know Narvin is," Liantor replied. "Don't lie to me."

"No, I mean, it's not Narvin, out there!" Seo said. "Listen, Liantor! Narvin isn't here! He's back on Gallifrey. _This_ Time Lord isn't part of the CIA. He doesn't have political power, a home, or even any money. He's no one important! Just some Time Lord… hobo."

(She really hoped the Doctor was okay.)

Liantor paused. Thinking this through.

He looked like he couldn't decide whether or not Seo was lying.

"You wouldn't have latched onto him, if he wasn't someone important," Liantor decided. He turned away from her. "No. It's a trick. A lie."

The moment he turned away, Seo finished untying the knots around her wrists. She shoved a nearby table at Liantor's militia, threw herself behind it, out of the way of their gunshots.

"Take her alive!" Liantor shouted, aiming his own gun. "She's no use, dead."

No use?

That was a weird way of putting it.

Seo had assumed Liantor just wanted to extract information from her. But now… well…

What else was he after?

Seo ripped the restraints from her legs, then used the tipped-over table to hoist herself through the air, over the heads of the gunmen and straight into the nearest window. She crashed through it, rolling to break her fall.

Thank the universe, she was on the first floor!

"Get her!" Liantor demanded of his militia. "Shoot, if you have to. But try to keep her alive."

"I'll try to keep me alive, too," Seo muttered, springing to her feet and beginning to run. "How about that?"

She really hoped the Doctor was in a nice, long healing coma, back in the TARDIS, so she didn't have to worry about him.

Because, right now, Grand Statesman Ergun's army was about to invade. And that meant — Seo had to warn Queen Astra.


	19. Chapter 19

"Atrios?" the Doctor cried, when he'd been told where he was. "This is Atrios?!"

He was in the middle of a bustling street in a picturesque city, with lots of trees up and down the sidewalk, electric cars drifting up and down the road, and people dressed up in fancy business suits, ready for the office. He'd only just stopped one such businessman, for a little chat, when he'd worked out where he was.

"There was a war, here, though," the Doctor pointed out. "An atomic war — with Zeos."

"About three centuries ago," the man in the business suit agreed. Glanced at the city around him. "Yep. Shoulda seen the old photos. They say this place looked like a picture of hell, back then." He shrugged. "Still. All better, now."

The Doctor yanked out his sonic screwdriver, and scanned the air. "Impossible," he said. "The radiation from a war like that would linger for thousands of years. This should be a radioactive wasteland, right now." He shook his head, as he read the results of the scan. "But… there's no radiation left. The whole planet's clear."

"I don't know the details," said the man in the business suit. "Queen Astra ordered the evacuation, decontamination, and resettlement about a century ago. I wasn't even born, yet."

The Doctor did a double-take. "Queen Astra? Is she still around?"

That couldn't be right!

"Oh, yes, she's been queen for about… 300 years, I think," the man in the business suit said.

"300?" The Doctor put away the sonic, and, instead, pointed up at the mountains. On the top of the tallest peak, stood a rather incongruous, gigantic black object. "And just when, in her 300 year reign, did _that_ thing turn up?"

"The sculpture, you mean?" The businessman shrugged. "Not sure. Strange thing, isn't it? No one here can work out what it's supposed to be a sculpture of. I say it's a squirrel. Quatrek says it's a drooling dog."

"It's a Dalek temporal weapon," the Doctor corrected.

The businessman clearly didn't have a clue what a Dalek was. "Like a missile? Hm. I don't see it, myself. But they do say art's all in the eye of the beholder."

"No, really — it's a Dalek temporal weapon," the Doctor insisted. "It's designed to accelerate time on a planet. It could run Atrios through thousands of years, in only a matter of seconds! The damage it could cause…!" He paused. As something suddenly struck him. "Thousands of years of radiation, erased in a matter of moments. Planet-wide evacuation. Ah. It's all starting to make sense, now."

"Not to me, it isn't," said the businessman. He checked his watch. "Anyways, I'd best be off." Turned, and rushed away. "Enjoy your… sightseeing, Mister!"

"Doctor!" the Doctor corrected him.

But he was already gone.

"So," the Doctor muttered to himself, "this is what became of Atrios and Zeos? Interesting."

"Zeos has been gone a long time, Doctor," came a familiar voice, from behind him. "And Atrios would have gone with it… if not for the decontamination."

The Doctor turned.

And beamed. "Romana!" he cried. Then, correcting himself, "I mean… Queen Astra! Terribly good to see you, again, your majesty!"

"And you, as well, Doctor," Astra replied, offering him her hand. "It's been a while."

She looked just the way she had the last time the Doctor had seen her, at the Chaos Pool — a little older than the young princess he'd first met with Romana, all those years ago, but still nowhere near 300 years old. She looked regal, in ornate garments and with a gold crown on her head. But walked the streets alone — with no guards, no entourage, no nothing.

Curious.

"I'm surprised you recognize me," the Doctor said, taking her hand and bowing. "I've had a bit of a face-lift, since then."

"A very tiresome Time Lord, named Narvin, told me to expect you, here and now," Astra replied. "He explained about your… altered appearance."

Narvin.

Brilliant.

Looked like he'd worked out the Doctor's full itinerary before the Doctor had ever even met Seo, in the first place.

What was Narvin up to?

The Doctor beamed at Astra. "So, tell me, Queen Astra — that Dalek weapon, over there." He pointed. "Someone altered it to be a terraforming, decontamination device, didn't they? And I think I know who." He paused. "Where'd she get it, by the way?"

"From the Daleks, of course," Astra said. "Where else?"

The Doctor did a double-take. "From the Daleks?! You mean, they just handed it over to her?"

Astra laughed. "I doubt it. Believe it or not, before she came to Atrios, she was a thief. Stole all kinds of things from both the Daleks and the Time Lords. Weapons. Slaves. Spacecraft. Dangerous temporal materials. Oh, and money; _lots_ of money. She even, so I've been told, once drilled a black hole in the Daleks' finances — one so wide, they couldn't get themselves out of it." Astra sighed. "Still. That's all over, now."

A small grin crept up the Doctor's face. "You think so?"

"I'm sure," Astra said. "She hasn't stolen from either the Daleks or the Time Lords for decades, now. She's an impartial, upstanding citizen of the universe."

Right…

 _Sure_ she was…

"Speaking of Seo — she's disappeared on me," the Doctor said, pulling his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. "You wouldn't happen to have seen her around, somewhere?"

Astra shook her head. "I can send out a patrol to find her, if you think that will help."

The Doctor had stopped paying attention, though.

He was waving his sonic through the air, checking the readings at different angles, squinting and shaking his head and muttering.

"Doctor, what are you…?" Astra asked.

"Trying to find it!" The Doctor spun around, taking a reading behind him. "Back in the TARDIS, see, Seo told me a rather interesting story about a damaged artifact she managed to fix. I don't have the first idea _how_ she fixed it… but considering that you're still alive, Queen Astra… I can guess what that artifact is."

"Artifact?" Astra asked. "You mean the Gem of Braxiatel?"

The Doctor spun back around. "Braxiatel?!"

He hadn't expected that.

"It's said the Gem of Braxiatel is an ancient, mystical artifact, that will reveal the secrets of anyone's past in perfect clarity," said Astra. "It's been lost for eons." She placed a hand up to her head. "I've thought of finding it, myself. Just… to remember Merack, a little more clearly. If I could only…"

She paused.

She suddenly looked very sad and lost.

"And, perhaps, to resolve some confusion about your own past," the Doctor added. He wouldn't mind getting some clarification on that, himself.

After all, the last time he'd seen Astra… he'd seen her die.

Yet, here she was.

Alive and well.

"I don't know what you mean, Doctor," said Astra. "I know my own past. There are no secrets." She shook her head, eager to change the subject. "Is that what you're looking for? The Gem of Braxiatel?"

"No, actually, I'm looking for the Key to Time," the Doctor said. "So I can dismantle and remove it. It's killing my friend, you see."

"But you can't!" Astra shouted, immediately.

The Doctor waggled his sonic at her. "Aha! So you _do_ know what I'm talking about."

Astra frowned, even more confused. "I… don't know why I said that," she admitted. "Honestly, Doctor… whatever this Key of yours is… I've never heard of it."

"You haven't heard of the Key to Time?" the Doctor asked. "But you still remember me? That seems a little… strange, Queen Astra. Implausible, even."

Astra leaned into the Doctor. "Doctor, there are… powerful forces at work, on Atrios," she said, in a hushed whisper. "Forces that shouldn't be tampered with. I can't say more, in public."

Powerful forces?

Yep, that sounded like the Key to Time, to him.

"Follow me," Astra said, gesturing for the Doctor to follow her, as she began to hurry off. "We'll return to the palace, and send for a patrol to find Seo. Then… perhaps I'll be able to explain, better."

But before they could — a space ship roared, overhead.

The Doctor craned his neck up, to see it. "Oh, dear. That's yet another problem."

"Atrios is a hub for trade in this galactic sector," Astra said. "I wouldn't worry. That ship is probably just one of our many trading partners."

"I doubt it," said the Doctor, watching as it descended and landed at the spaceport — close by. "It looks, to me, like a heavily armed P2080 Battle Cruiser. Distinctive vapor trails on the P2080."

Astra blinked. "What?"

"You're being invaded, your majesty," the Doctor said, as another battle cruiser soared overhead. He ran to the spaceport. "Which, as it happens, is fine! Because defeating invasions is what I do best!"

* * *

Seo knew she was running out of time, when she saw the first ship of the Rodian battle fleet landing at the spaceport.

Luckily, the Queen's palace was just up ahead.

She panted, as she reached the palace gates. "The Queen," Seo gasped, to the guards at the gate. "I need to speak to the Queen."

The guards barred the entrance, looking menacing. "Tourists are not permitted, ma'am."

"Oh, come on, you have to know who I am!" Seo cried, exasperated. "Seosyrae. Lady of Trees. Great Rebuilder. One of the Pacifists! I'm around here, all the time!"

The guards looked at one another.

They obviously _had_ heard of her.

"We'll have to check with someone in charge, ma'am," one of the guards said, slipping away to phone up his commanding officer. "Please wait there."

Damn, just her luck. These guards must be newbies.

Another ship flew overhead. The rest of the fleet wouldn't be far behind. And most, Seo knew, wouldn't land at the spaceports — they'd just bomb the hell out of the planet.

She didn't have time for incompetent guards.

"Just get the Queen out here, right now!" Seo demanded. "She'll vouch for me. I promise."

"Stay where you are, ma'am, while we check your credentials," said the remaining guard. "We cannot permit you to interact with the Queen until we verify your identity."

"Who do you think I am? A terrorist? An assassin?!" Seo said.

"You could be," the guard replied. "We don't have any way to know, for sure, until we verify your identity."

The other guard emerged, and whispered something to the first guard. The first guard nodded, then informed Seo, "If you could come back, another time, with the necessary paperwork…"

"Oh, for crying out…!" Seo threw her arms open. "You know what? Screw this. I'm a terrorist, I've got a really big gun, and I'm planning to track down and kill the Queen. Got that?"

The guards looked at her.

She didn't look even remotely threatening, at the moment.

"Ma'am, that's not funny," said the guard. "You're not even carrying a gun."

Seo spun on her heels. "I know, but your military protocols say that you've still gotta assemble a team to track me down and haul me in!" She began to run off, towards the spaceport. "So unless you want to be in trouble with your superiors… you better give chase!"

She was just hoping they'd actually do it.

Seo knew this palace's security well enough to know that, if there was this much stalling after she'd dropped her name, it could only mean Queen Astra wasn't in the palace, right now.

Which meant… Seo was guessing… that Astra was already on her way to the spaceport.

To negotiate.

"Please, let those guards follow protocol," Seo muttered, as she ran. "Please, please!"

 


	20. Chapter 20

"I still don't understand, Doctor," said Astra, as she ran alongside the Doctor, towards the spaceport. "Just what is this 'Key to Time' of yours, and why are you so sure it's here?"

"Well, it'd be a bit of a coincidence if it wasn't," the Doctor said. "Can you really not remember anything about the Key? Not even the Chaos Pool?"

Astra hesitated. "I… went on an expedition, to find the Chaos Pool," she recalled. "Long, long ago." For a moment, she looked like her thoughts were far away. Then she shook her head. "But I never found it."

"No?" said the Doctor. "Because I saw you there. In fact, I saw you die, there."

"Impossible." Queen Astra's expression fixed into a stubborn stare, as she decided which memories were real and which were just figments of her imagination. "Quite impossible. I'm still very much alive, as you can see. I think I'd remember, if I'd gone to the Chaos Pool and died."

The Doctor figured there was no point in arguing with her. She'd clearly already made up her mind.

"Fine, then," the Doctor said. "What _do_ you remember, from that time?"

"From when I departed to find the Chaos Pool?" Astra shuddered, remembering. "Atrios was a dying world. Our population was prematurely aging to death. Our air was polluted. Our cities were just piles of rubble. No trees. No grass. Radiation everywhere. Anyone still alive was burrowed in underground bunkers, waiting to die with the planet."

"And you thought the Chaos Pool could help heal your planet?" the Doctor guessed.

"I was desperate," said Astra. "My people and my world were dying. When science didn't help, I began to look into our myths and legends. I organized an expedition to look for the Chaos Pool… and, at the same time, I called the Great Rebuilder."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Rebuilder?"

"I thought she was just a story," Astra said. "Some call her the Great Mother. Some call her the Lady of Trees. It's said… she wanders the universe, searching for dying worlds. It's said she breathes life into planets. It's said her touch heals the sick and her songs regrow the trees."

"I'd say that highly advanced temporal and terraforming technology are what's rebuilding the planet," the Doctor said.

"When I failed to find the Chaos Pool," Astra continued, "I went home. And she was there, waiting for me. She offered to save my people and rebuild my planet — and all she wanted, in return, was my friendship."

The Doctor laughed. "Yes, that's the kind of thing that people say when they're actually trying to get their hands on one of the most powerful items in the universe."

He wondered just what Seo had done to Astra, to make her forget all about the Chaos Pool. In fact, he wondered if this even _was_ Astra, or if it was an android or clone, taking Astra's place.

After all, if Seo was using the Key to Time…

Astra _was_ the sixth segment of that Key…

"Doctor, _all_ the Pacifists meet on Atrios," Astra told him. "I told you, there are powerful forces at play, here. Forces that no one in the group really understands, but which appear to influence peace talks. If we can use these forces to prevent a war that'll tear apart the universe… then why shouldn't we?"

"I'm sorry, Pacifists?" the Doctor asked, as they arrived at the spaceport. "What Pacifists?"

Astra caught her slip of the tongue, and looked embarrassed. "Nobody! Forget I said anything!"

"Oh, come, now," the Doctor said. "You can do better than that."

Astra never got the chance to answer.

Because as the Doctor and Astra arrived at the spaceport, they could already see yellow-skinned, red-eyed aliens pouring out of the ships, heavily armed and thoroughly trained, storming through the space-port and killing anyone who got in their way.

"But those are… Rodians!" Astra said. "Grand Statesman Ergun's people. He's one of the Pacifists. He can't…!"

"I think he's just proven he can," the Doctor said, his brain working overtime. Just what were the Pacifists? Obviously, there was something more to it than just believing in peace… if this was the might of their military…

Before the Doctor could stop her, though, Astra had run out into the center of the space-port, and placed herself in between a group of armed Rodian soldiers and a dozen innocent people. She gave the soldiers her most challenging and regal look.

"Cease this bloodshed, at once!" Astra demanded. "I am the Queen Astra, President of the Atrios Alliance and ruler of this planet, and you have no right to…"

The Rodian soldiers turned their energy rifles on Queen Astra.

"Give us the Time Lord," they demanded.

Astra stared at them.

The Doctor frowned. They knew him? He scoured his memory for some trace of these 'Rodians'. Trouble was, he couldn't find anything.

Yet they were looking for him.

Why?

"Not until you bring me Grand Statesman Ergun!" Astra demanded. "Your actions on Atrios are criminal! I demand he account for this death and destruction."

"The Grand Statesman does not need to account to anyone," said a Rodian arrayed in a splendid uniform, trimmed with gold and silver. He and a private militia group stepped out of the shadows, on the other side of the spaceport. He must have landed on the planet much earlier. "The Grand Statesman's word is our command, and we obey him without question."

Astra regarded the Rodian in fancy uniform, carefully. "Supreme General Liantor, isn't it? Successor to the Grand Statesman; prince in all but name." She pointed to the soldiers. "Explain yourself."

"This planet is now under the command of the Rodian military, your majesty," said Liantor. "If you wish to retain any power at all, in the new government, you'll surrender unconditionally."

Astra looked incensed. "How dare you?!" she demanded. "You have no right to our planet! You can't hope to…!"

"My father has been reviewing a lot of documents, recently," Liantor said. "One of those documents turned out to be rather interesting. It concerned you, Queen Astra. It was a record of your death."

Astra's face went pale. "This is a preposterous fiction."

"I'm not sure why you faked your own death," said Liantor. "Nor do I care. But, from the standpoint of any galactic tribunal, your planet is governed by a dead woman. Your people are in anarchy. It's Rodia's right to claim this land and bring order to your anarchy."

Astra bunched her hands into fists. "I'm not dead!" she shouted. "This planet is civilized, orderly, and peaceful. You cannot…!"

"Queen Astra, the law is on our side," Liantor said, calmly. "My orders aren't to kill or depose you. Quite the contrary — my father is perfectly happy to allow you to remain the Queen of Atrios." He gave a cold smile. "Just so long as you rule as _his_ subject."

"You mean his slave!" Astra retorted.

"'Slave' is a very nasty word," said Liantor. "Don't think of it as slavery. You'll just be giving us all your money and resources, while doing anything we order you, without question, from here on out." He aimed his rifle at Astra's head. "And we have a very important first assignment for you, Queen Astra."

"Whatever it is, I utterly refuse," Astra replied. "I will not give in to this… tyranny!"

Liantor ignored her protests. "My father commanded me to find and detain two Gallifreyan spies," he said. "One is a Time Lord. The other is known as 'the Great Rebuilder'."

Astra glared at him.

But said nothing.

"Where are they, Astra?" Liantor asked. He clicked the safety off his gun. "Tell me. Or you die."

"Never," Astra said.

"You'd put your life at risk for two spies?" Liantor asked. "Two Time Lord lackeys, trying to soften up planets in this sector, so Gallifrey can steal our resources for their Time War?"

Astra met Liantor's eyes. "The Great Rebuilder saved both my world and yours," she told him. "She's given us food, in times of famine. She's built us homes, when we needed shelter. And she's always shown up to protect us, whenever we are in danger. She's done all this for Atrios, and I'm sure she's offered the same to your people. You should be ashamed of yourself, for betraying her."

Liantor sighed. "She's also sleeping with Narvin — the Coordinator of the Time Lords' Celestial Intervention Agency. Did you know that?"

"That's a lie," Astra accused.

"I have proof, but I don't think it would be appropriate for public viewing," Liantor said. "Do you?" He whistled at someone in his retinue, who ran over and produced a small box for Queen Astra to take.

She took it.

Looked inside.

For a moment, she could only stare at its contents. Then, hurriedly, she snapped the box shut — as if the contents were too horrible to look at.

"I know Seo arrived on this planet with a Time Lord," said Liantor. "So where is he, Astra? And where is Seo?"

"I… I don't…" Astra said. Her hands were shaking around the box.

The soldier who'd given it to her retrieved it, and disappeared into the crowd of other soldiers, surrounding them.

"Where are they?!" Liantor shouted in her face.

Astra, subconsciously, snuck a nervous glance at where the Doctor was hiding.

Liantor caught it.

"Squad seven," said Liantor, pointing in the direction she'd glanced. "Search over there."

Astra lunged forwards, to stop them. "Don't you dare…!"

The soldiers still surrounding Astra quickly held her back.

Squad 7, meanwhile, dragged the Doctor out from his hiding spot, shoving his hands behind his back.

Liantor blinked.

Blinked again.

"I heard you Time Lords could change bodies, but I never suspected…" Liantor analyzed the Doctor, in detail. "Is this really the same Narvin who…?"

"Nope," the Doctor cut in. He tried to extend a hand, to shake, but the soldiers held him, fast. "I'm the Doctor. Not Narvin. Just the Doctor."

Liantor flicked his eyes up and down him. "Not Narvin? No. It's a trick. Has to be."

"It isn't!" Astra cut in. "I met this man, when I was a princess. I know him. He really _is_ the Doctor."

Liantor turned back to her. Remembered she was there.

Waved at the soldiers surrounding her.

"Kill the Queen and everyone else, around here," said Liantor, heading over to the Doctor. "Leave no witnesses."

A set of gunshots rang out, around Queen Astra. Astra shrieked.

But not because of the gunshots.

No.

She shrieked because someone jumped down from the roof rafters and slammed into her, knocking her to the ground.

The bullets flew over their heads.

"Hold fire!" Liantor commanded, spinning around to face the Queen, once more. He gave a thin smile, when he saw who had saved Astra's life. "Hello, again, Seo. I figured you'd show up, the moment I ordered Astra's execution."

Seo, despite being surrounded by loaded guns, jumped to her feet and advanced on Liantor.

"What the hell is wrong with you, Liantor?" Seo demanded. "The moment the other Pacifists find out what Rodia's done, here, they'll unite against you."

"Then it's fortunate that my father ignored your 'governmental advice' and, instead, invested all our government's money into the military," said Liantor, calmly. "We can beat everyone else, easily. It won't even be a challenge."

"But you won't need to, will you?" the Doctor interjected.

Everyone snapped their heads over to him.

"Well, let's face it," the Doctor said. "You don't think Seo's a Gallifreyan spy. What would Gallifrey even want with Rodia?" He turned his eyes to Seo. "You know what artifact she's hidden, here. And you want it."

"What? You mean the Gem of Braxiatel?" Liantor laughed. "You actually think it's hidden on Atrios?"

Seo frowned. "Gem of… what?" She looked at the Doctor, hoping for some clues. "What's going on?"

The Doctor opened his mouth, to explain.

But before he could, a group of Atrian soldiers appeared on the perimeter of the spaceport, and opened fire.

"Rescue the Queen!" they shouted. "Secure the perimeter!"

Seo breathed a sigh of relief, as a few Atrian soldiers ran forwards and grabbed them all out of harm's way, as the gun battle raged, around them.

"About time," Seo muttered.

The Doctor leaned over to whisper to Seo, as they were led out of the spaceport: "So… your 'children' aren't exactly people. They're… what? Planets and species, nearly extinct, that you found, saved, and rebuilt?"

"Hey, if the Internal Revenue Service asks, they're my children," Seo said. "You know. Dependents."

The Doctor sighed. "So that's what this is. Tax fraud."

"You make it sound like such a bad thing!" Seo protested. "I just want a tax break, since the IRS doesn't count rebuilding planets as charity! It's not like I'm doing anything really scummy, like helping rich people put their money into off-shore and off-time bank accounts, so I can rob them blind, later on." She paused. "Well, not that the IRS can prove, anyways."

The Doctor gave another sigh. He looked a little disgusted by the whole thing.

"Just because you don't need money, Mr. Time Lord Hobo," Seo said, "doesn't mean no one else does." She gestured around herself. "You think it's cheap, terraforming planets, building cities, and curing entire populations from radiation poisoning?"

"And funding Rodia's military?" the Doctor prompted.

Seo grimaced. "That wasn't my intention."

"Intentional or not, they're here, well armed, and determined to take over this planet," the Doctor said. "You do realize they're almost certainly here to steal the Key to Time?"

Seo jumped. "You know about the Key to…?"

"Naturally," the Doctor said. "Romana and I were the ones who first found and assembled the segments."

Astra, beside them, stumbled a little, in her run. "You… _also_ know about the Doctor's Key, Seo?" Astra asked. "You know what he's talking about?"

Seo shrugged. "Sure. But it's nothing important."

Astra stopped them all, in mid-run, in the middle of one of the streets leading away from the spaceport.

"Why did you never tell me about this 'Key'?" Astra demanded of Seo. "The Doctor speaks of it like it's immensely powerful. You've been hiding it on Atrios, so that my people can die, protecting it… and you never thought to tell me?!"

Seo frowned. "Astra, I'm not…"

"Queen Astra!" Astra demanded.

Seo blinked. "What?"

"I've had more than enough of you disregarding my title and pretending to be my friend," said Astra. "Friends do not lie to one another, the way you have lied to me!"

Seo said nothing.

Then, very quietly, "Yes, your majesty. I'm sorry."

Astra paused, a long moment, staring at Seo, not sure whether to push her away and order her imprisoned… or to forgive her and ask for more information about the Key to Time.

Astra turned to the Doctor. "And what do you think, Doctor?" she demanded. "You ended our war with Zeos, and saved my people. Do you think I should trust her?"

"I think," the Doctor offered, his eyes fixed on the spaceport, where the gun battle still raged, "that Atrios has much bigger things to worry about, right now, than your friendship."

Astra frowned.

Then sighed, and signaled to a retinue of Atrian soldiers, who were approaching, on the street. "Bring the Doctor and Seo to my palace. They're under my protection. See that they receive it."

The soldiers saluted Astra, then half broke off and began to usher the Doctor and Seo towards the palace.

"Something else I wanted to ask you about," the Doctor said to Seo, as they walked away.

But Astra never heard what more he said… because they both passed out of earshot.

Astra, meanwhile, was led off to a small house, where, she was informed, her military officers were discussing their strategy of attack. Astra caught her breath, trying to put aside all she'd seen and heard, and opened the door.

There were no Atrian military officers in the room.

Just one Rodian.

"Queen Astra," said Supreme General Liantor.

Astra glared at Liantor. "Soldiers!" she shouted at the armed soldiers surrounding her. "Defend me!"

But they weren't there, anymore.

They had already abandoned her, shutting and locking the door behind her, trapping her with Liantor.

"Not all the Atrians are faithful to you, Queen Astra," said Liantor. "I allowed these spies to rescue you, because my orders are not just to bring Seo to Rodia — they are to break her." His voice lowered, as he brought out the box that he'd shown Astra, before. "Have you thought about what I showed you?"

Astra stared at that box.

Her hands were shaking.

"I thought… you'd be showing me evidence," said Astra. "Photos. Documents. That sort of thing. Not… whatever that was."

Liantor opened the box, again. "It's called the Gem of Braxiatel," he said. "But it wasn't hidden on _your_ planet. It was hidden on _mine_." He took it out, and shoved it in front of her eyes. "Look into its depths, Queen Astra. The Gem of Braxiatel reveals hidden pasts. All you see, in there, is true."

Astra stared at it.

She couldn't stop herself.

"See all the reasons you should hate the Great Rebuilder," said Liantor. "All the ways she's lied to you. All the ways she's manipulated you. You're her puppet, Queen Astra. Her pawn. She toys with the fate of Atrios, then sits back and laughs, alongside her Time Lord lover."

Astra shuddered at whatever she saw inside the Gem of Braxiatel.

"My orders are to break her, and bring her back to Rodia," said Liantor. "She cares for this planet, the way a mother cares for a child. Watching it die would hurt her more than any torture. And you want to hurt her, don't you, Queen Astra?"

"I… don't know," Astra whispered. "I want to hurt her, but… I can't destroy Atrios! I could never…!" She flicked her eyes upwards, to Liantor. "Please. I need her. My world would fall apart, without her."

Liantor scowled, and shoved the Gem of Braxiatel back in her face. "In that case, I think you need another dose."


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI, during the Doctor and Romana's search for the Key to Time, they ran into someone named Princess Strella, who wound up being an exact double of Romana's first incarnation.
> 
> Interesting that she is an exact double of Romana's first incarnation, while Astra (whom we're seeing, right now) is an exact double of Romana's second incarnation...
> 
> Enjoy!

"So. Tell me. Who are the 'Pacifists'?" the Doctor asked, as they headed to the palace.

Seo acted as if she'd never heard the term, before. "Pacifists? I don't know what you…"

"Back in that Dalek base, you asked Narvin if I was a Pacifist," the Doctor said. "And he said no. I thought you meant pacifist with a lowercase 'p'… but after speaking to Queen Astra, I'm beginning to think differently."

Seo said nothing.

"They're a group, aren't they?" the Doctor said. "And since Queen Astra seems to know all about Daleks and Time Lords… I think I can make a fairly accurate guess about which war they're trying to prevent."

Seo gestured around herself. "You haven't figured out where we are, have you, Doctor?"

"Atrios," the Doctor said. "Twin planet to Zeos."

"And the furthest outreach of the Olitzitz War," Seo added.

Ah.

Now, this was starting to make more sense.

"Atrios and Zeos were fighting their own war, at the time," Seo said. "An atomic war. But the Zeons got caught up in the larger conflict. They programmed a computer to automate their war against Atrios, and then headed off, to fight for the Olitzitz. It… didn't go well. There are no Zeons left, Doctor. Not a single one."

"Meaning the Zeons left Atrios fighting against nothing but a battle computer, lingering on an abandoned planet," the Doctor said. "Yes, I remember that." He cleared his throat. "So Queen Astra is, indirectly, a victim of your Olitzitz War?"

" _All_ the Pacifists were affected by the Olitzitz War, in one way or another," Seo said. "Most fought on the front lines, like me. Many saw their worlds almost or completely destroyed. All have sworn never to let it happen, again."

" _You_ fought on the front lines?" The Doctor cast her a sideways glance. "You told me you were just a child, during that war!"

Seo sighed. "What can I say? It was that kind of war."

The Doctor scrutinized her, closely. Trying to figure out whether or not she was lying.

He couldn't work it out.

"Liantor's father, 'Grand Statesman' Ergun, also fought in the war, towards the end," Seo said. "The moment his planet joined the war, he enlisted — even though he had to lie about his age, to do so. Too young. _Way_ too young. He thought it'd prove he was a real man." Seo's eyes dropped to the ground. "But it didn't. The war destroyed him."

The Doctor nodded.

He'd seen this happen, time and time again, in wars.

"I only ran into him once, during the war," Seo said. She looked into the distance, almost seeing it play out, in front of her. "Part of me will always see him like that. The scared little soldier, trembling in terror on a battlefield, so sure he was going to die."

Then Seo blinked.

And snapped out of her reverie.

"That kind of war can't happen, again," Seo said. "I won't let it happen, again. You can see what it did to Ergun! What do you think it'd do to Narvin? Or even to you?"

"I'm not fighting a war for the Time Lords," the Doctor insisted. "I'm not a soldier."

Seo crossed her arms. "The Daleks' number one enemy? Don't make me laugh."

The Doctor sighed. But figured it wasn't worth arguing with her.

"Well, you Pacifists do have an admirable goal," said the Doctor, changing the subject. "Even if it's impossible."

"Just because we're not one of your so-called 'higher races'?" Seo gave him a pointed stare. "And therefore, not as intelligent or capable as you, oh supreme being?"

"No, it's just that Daleks always break any treaty they sign," the Doctor said. "So there's no way to negotiate a successful peace treaty with them." He brushed back his hair, with a sigh. "Trust me. I know."

"And yet… the peace talks _are_ working," Astra said, as she caught up with them. Her own group of soldier escorts joined those already escorting the Doctor and Seo, as they all approached the palace. "We've delayed the war by decades, now."

"Impossible!" said the Doctor. "Through just peace talks?"

"Until the talks began to break down, yes." Astra turned to Seo, shooting her a hard, cold glare. "You shouldn't be discussing the Pacifists with Time Lords. Have you lost your mind?"

Seo shrugged. "So everyone keeps saying."

Astra's glare turned even colder. "First, you bring Narvin into the group," she said, "and now, you're blabbing our secrets to any Time Lord who happens to be nearby! You are supposed to be an _impartial_ arbiter, working for the peace of the universe! Yet everywhere I go, I hear talk of you and the Time Lords. Working together."

"I need Narvin for the peace talks," Seo insisted. "I told you. We need one Time Lord and one Dalek. Narvin's on the Time Lord side of things."

" _One_ Time Lord," Astra said. Gestured at the Doctor. "He makes two."

Seo dismissed this with the wave of her hand. "Yeah, but he's the Doctor. He doesn't count."

Astra's eyes still blazed with anger. "And where's the Dalek?"

Seo frowned. "Huh?"

"One Time Lord and one Dalek, you say," Astra repeated. "So far, I've seen two Time Lords. And no Daleks."

Seo grimaced. "Right. Um…"

"How could you have been negotiating peace talks between the Time Lords and the Daleks," Astra said, "with no Daleks, Seo? Tell me that!"

Seo said nothing.

She was clearly racking her brain, trying to come up with a good excuse.

"Our group has trusted you with the fate of the universe," said Queen Astra. "I've trusted you with the fate of my planet. Was I mistaken?!"

"No," Seo insisted.

"You say that," said Astra, "but I hear rumors that you're an agent of Gallifrey, rumors that you and Narvin are romantically involved, rumors that there's no record of you ever being near the Olitzitz War. Even rumors that _you_ are the true ruler of my planet, and I am… dead." She held her head in her hands. "My memories make no sense! My mind is in turmoil. Why do I remember the Doctor, remember he saved Atrios and ended our war with Zeos, but can't remember anything else about what happened, while he was here? Why do the records show I'm dead, when I'm clearly still alive? Why do I remember the Chaos Pool, but know I never found it?!"

Seo said nothing.

"How often have you been lying to me, Seo?" Astra demanded.

"Maybe here and there, with a few little things… but I promise, I've always been honest about the big things," Seo said, as they walked through the gates and double doors, and entered Queen Astra's palace. "Really, Astra. I'm on your side."

Their footsteps echoed across the marble floors, in the front hall of the palace.

"And this 'Key to Time'?" Astra demanded. "Is that another 'little thing'?"

Seo grimaced. "Well… no. But, to be fair, I didn't actually lie about that one. I just didn't tell you the _whole_ truth."

Astra's glare made it quite clear that this wasn't a good excuse.

"And what do you think, Doctor?" Astra said, turning to him. "Is Seo working for my people? Or is she a two-faced, manipulative liar?"

The Doctor wasn't listening, though. He was too busy scanning the air with his sonic screwdriver, trying to track down where Seo was keeping the Key to Time.

"Impressive shielding," the Doctor commented. He waved the sonic around. "With some clever scanning, I can just about get a faint reading that something's here, but can't get a fix on what or where it is."

"Doctor!" Astra snapped, grabbing the sonic screwdriver out of the Doctor's hands. "Is Seo lying to me?"

The Doctor sighed, irritated. How had he managed to get drawn into this ridiculous spat? "All right, then. Yes. She is. There are no peace talks. Never have been." He grabbed back his sonic screwdriver. "Happy?"

Astra stared. "No… peace talks?!"

"Thanks, Doctor," Seo grumbled. "Way to break it to her, gently."

"Well, it hardly matters," the Doctor said, brushing the whole thing off, as he got back to scanning. "Peace talks with the Daleks wouldn't amount to much. I think Seo's been rather more clever and rather more successful, without them."

The Doctor switched some settings around on the sonic, and analyzed the readings, one final time.

"Quite brilliantly clever, in fact," the Doctor muttered. He turned to Seo. "Would I be correct in guessing there's a certain Princess Strella of the planet Tara, in your group of Pacifists?"

"You mean Queen Strella, descendent of the Royal Kings of Tara, Mistress of the domains of Thorvald, Mortgarde, and Freya?" asked Astra.

"That's the one," the Doctor confirmed. He looked down at his sonic screwdriver. "Interesting. Very interesting. It's all starting to make sense."

Seo said nothing.

"Of course, you've known this, all along," the Doctor said to Seo, tucking away the sonic. "After all. You told me, yourself… you know what's killing Romana."

"I know, _now_ ," Seo protested. "I didn't, when I started. Narvin figured it out."

"When you brought him into the Pacifists group?" the Doctor asked.

"Right when the Key stopped working," Seo agreed. "I needed another set of eyes, to help figure out what was going wrong. And I trust Narvin."

Astra stopped them, both. Her fury and confusion grew, with every word they said.

"What are you two talking about?!" Queen Astra demanded. "What has Seo really been up to, on Atrios? Tell me!"

Seo and the Doctor looked at one another.

But said nothing.

"I command you to tell me the truth, Seo," Astra said. "Either you will give me the answers I require, now, and remain here as my guest, or you'll surrender your answers under forced interrogation, as my prisoner. But you will tell me everything."

Seo stared. "Prisoner?"

Astra clapped her hands, and the nearby soldiers quickly surrounded Seo and the Doctor, weapons all aimed at Seo's head.

"Wow, that turned ugly, fast," Seo muttered, raising her hands.

"You're a traitor to this planet, Seo," Astra accused. "You treated me as your puppet and forced me to dance to your every whim. You and Narvin laughed at our misfortune, as you manipulated us for the sake of Gallifrey's war!"

"What?" Seo shook her head. "Where's all this stuff coming from? Have you been talking to Liantor?"

"We Atrians will not die for your Time War!" Astra shouted. "We would rather die free, than die as slaves to Gallifrey! And if this is the final moment we can die free, I will take it." She turned to the soldier nearest her. "Poison the water supply, across the planet."

The Doctor snapped his head up, surprised. "I'm sorry?!"

"Astra, what do you think you're doing?!" Seo shouted.

The soldier, surprisingly, just gave a curt nod and went to do Astra's bidding.

Seo lunged forwards and tackled him.

Another soldier shot at her.

The bullet grazed her left arm, but slammed into the heart of the soldier she'd tackled. The soldier died, beneath her.

"Your majesty, if I may…" the Doctor began, turning the sonic on Astra.

Astra swatted the sonic away. "And now, Seo, you're murdering my soldiers and expecting me to sit back and ignore it? Well, I won't. If you kill my people, I'll kill yours." She gestured at another one of her guards. "Shoot the Time Lord."

"Astra, don't you realize…?" the Doctor began.

Seo jumped to her feet. "Countermand that," she commanded, pointing at Astra.

Astra, as if acting on her own thoughts, suddenly shouted, "No, hold fire! Don't kill him."

Then Astra frowned, and put her hand up to her head.

"I mean…" Astra said, confused.

"Send the soldiers away," Seo commanded, stepping towards Astra. "Tell them not to poison the planet."

Astra, promptly, did precisely as she was commanded. She acted as if the entire thing was her idea, in the first place.

The Doctor stared between the two.

He couldn't quite believe what he was seeing.

"I hate having to do this to her," Seo sighed, answering the Doctor's unasked question. "My sire used to do it to me… and it scared the living daylights out of me. I promised myself I'd never do it to anyone else."

"No," Astra said, her hands on her head. "This isn't me, talking. This is… manipulation! It's a lie! It's…!"

Seo grabbed Astra by the shoulders. "Astra, calm down," she said. "Okay? I'm not going to hurt you. Just look straight ahead… like that. There you go."

Seo studied Astra, top to bottom.

"Damn," said Seo. "Nothing obviously wrong with her. She seems fine." She stared into Astra's eyes, like she was analyzing something inside of them. "Maybe it's a virus or something."

The Doctor edged forwards, carefully. "A computer virus, you mean? After all… she isn't real."

"She's real enough," Seo replied. She squinted, unable to see any clues in Astra's eyes. "I found her inside the Key to Time. Figured… she's more useful out here than in there." Seo stepped away from her, shaking her head. "Yeah, I can't find anything wrong with her, at all. I have no idea why she freaked out on us, like that."

The Doctor scanned his sonic up and down the Queen Astra.

Strangely enough… he got no readings from her.

Like she didn't exist.

"Oh, well," Seo said. She snapped her fingers. "I'll give her a reset. That'll wipe whatever-it-is from her head."

The Doctor stared, in amazement, as Queen Astra exploded into a rainbow of light and color. Then, swirling into the air, the light coalesced and reformed Astra's figure.

"Astra, are you there?" Seo asked, stepping forwards and putting her hands on Astra's arms. "Are you awake?"

Astra twitched, blinking.

"Good," Seo said. She looked deep into Astra's eyes. "Let's go ahead and reinitialize. Who are you?"

Astra met Seo's eyes. "I am nothing," she said. "I am dead. I am a matter projection of the woman who was a disguise for the sixth segment of the Key to…"

"No, you're a living, breathing person," Seo corrected. "You're Queen Astra, Ruler of Atrios and President of the Atrios Alliance. You've never even heard of the Key to Time. It doesn't exist."

"There is no Key to Time," Astra repeated.

"Good," said Seo. "Next. How did you and I first meet?"

A look of horror spread across Astra's face. "The Chaos Pool," she whispered. "I remember… the whole universe was about to shatter. I remember dying. But then, I woke up. I was screaming. I…!"

"No, no, no, forget all of that," Seo said. Kept staring into Astra's eyes. "You never found the Chaos Pool. Got that?"

"But I did," Astra insisted. "I did! And he was there." She pointed at the Doctor. "The Doctor! He was there, with a different face! I remember him!"

Seo glanced back at the Doctor, irritated that he was making this difficult for her. But then met Astra's eyes, again.

"And then I woke up, screaming," said Astra, "and you were there, with your hands glowing so brightly, and I realized I couldn't move, I couldn't even make a noise, I was trapped inside a segment and I was suffocating and my brain was falling to pieces, and no one even knew…!"

"Astra, forget that," Seo said, more forcefully. "Forget being a segment. Forget being trapped inside the Key to Time. It never happened. There is no Key to Time."

Astra began to calm. "There… is no Key to Time."

The Doctor stepped forwards, horrified. "She remembers being a segment?"

"Always," Seo confirmed. She took a deep breath. "Astra. This is how we met. You called for the Great Rebuilder, just before you departed for the Chaos Pool. You never found the Chaos Pool. When you returned home, I was waiting for you."

"I… called you," Astra repeated. "And you came and saved our world."

"That's right," Seo agreed. "And when you heard I fought in the Olitzitz War, you offered to let me join the Pacifists."

Astra frowned. "I thought… _you_ asked _me_ to let you join…"

"No, it was your idea," Seo said. "Not mine. Yours. Got that?"

"My idea," Astra repeated.

"Perfect." Seo stepped away, and waved her hands at Astra. "Well! Go ahead! Wake up! Go back to normal!"

Astra wavered, on her feet.

"What, where…?" Astra said.

"Feeling better, now?" Seo asked her. "Not planning to poison everyone on the planet or try to kill the Doctor?"

Astra put her hands to her head. "Of course not. I'd never…" Her breath hitched, as she remembered. "But… no! I couldn't have…!"

"What happened, to make you want to poison everyone, Queen Astra?" the Doctor asked. "What was inside that box Liantor showed you?"

"I don't know!" Astra said. "That memory's just… gone! Blanked from my head." She gestured at Seo. "All I know is… I hated her. I wanted her to suffer for what she did. I wanted to break her into tiny pieces and stomp on them. And destroying the planet… would do that, to her."

"Sorry, you were willing to wipe out your own planet, just to make her suffer?" the Doctor asked.

He glanced at Seo.

Seo seemed none the wiser. "I'd assumed it was Liantor who put her up to this, but even _he's_ not that bad." She paused. "I hope."

In the distance, Seo and the Doctor heard the footsteps of a large number of guards.

The Doctor grabbed Seo by the arm. "Astra may have snapped out of it, but her guards didn't. If anyone saw what you did to Astra…"

He began to run, dragging Seo after him.

"I'll hold them off!" Astra called after them. "You two — find somewhere to hide!"

They raced through the palace, their footsteps cacophonous, against the marble floor. Seo yanked the Doctor to the right, as she recognized her surroundings — and knew precisely where they needed to go.

"You and I, Seo," the Doctor said, as they ran, "need to have a little chat about the ethics of rewriting people's memories."

Seo shrugged. "Why? I'm only erasing the traumatic stuff. You got a problem with that?"

"Yes, I do," the Doctor replied. "They're _her_ memories. She should be entitled to use them however she wants. By rewriting them, you're simply… manipulating her into trusting you!"

"It's just easier, when I do it this way," Seo said. "I didn't, with Ergun, and you can see how well _that_ turned out."

"It's still wrong," the Doctor said. "Morally wrong. I won't let you keep manipulating her like that."

Seo scoffed. "Her! Why stop at just her? I'm manipulating pretty much everyone in the Pacifist group, in one way or another. Why do you think I brought Astra back to life, in the first place? I needed a way in."

The Doctor gave her a hard, cold glare. "So this is the only reason you're saving Atrios?" he said. "To manipulate people and events, so you have a way into the Pacifists group and a good place to store the Key to Time?"

"Not the _only_ reason," Seo said. She brushed back a strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail, as she raced around a curve in the hallway. "Why? What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm going to make the lies stop, Seo," said the Doctor. "I'm going to make you tell all your Pacifists the truth."

Seo shook her head. "That isn't a good idea."

"The truth's going to come out, sooner or later," the Doctor said. "You might as well make it sooner."

"Not if I want to live to see 'later', I won't," Seo muttered. She shook her head. "Do you want to tell me what you were doing at the Chaos Pool, with Astra? Or are you just going to leave me guessing?"

The Doctor stumbled, at the sudden change in topic. "Sorry?" He got his thoughts and his footing back in order. "Yes. Right. Chaos Pool. Well… I was there. The Key to Time was disintegrating, and taking the universe with it. I threw the segments into the Chaos Pool, to destroy them."

"Disintegrating?" Seo considered. "So… the Key to Time has a limited lifespan, and after that, it just disintegrates and destroys the universe?"

"Not exactly," the Doctor admitted. He hadn't wanted to mention this part of the story. It was a bit embarrassing. "It was… sort of… my fault. I broke the Key to Time."

Seo's eyes lit up, with sudden curiosity. "How?"

"I assembled the Key, and paused time across the universe, even though I didn't have the sixth segment," the Doctor said. "I created a mock-up segment. There were rather pressing reasons, at the time."

"And… I'm guessing… the Key wasn't designed to work with only five segments?" Seo asked.

"Nope," the Doctor confirmed. "The segments became unstable. Nearly collapsed every dimension of time."

"So _that's_ why that Tevin needed me to fix the segments!" Seo realized. "It all makes sense, now."

The Doctor looked at her, curiously. He still wasn't sure how she'd managed to 'fix' them.

Or what the Tevin people might want, themselves, with a Key to Time on their hands.

"The Key to Time is extremely dangerous," the Doctor warned. "It has enough power to instantly stop and start time across an infinitely expanding universe — and that is massive. I didn't trust myself to keep that power. And I'm still not convinced that I can trust you."

"What? You think I should have sold off the Key to Time to the highest bidder?" Seo grinned. "Well. Maybe I'll do that, later."

"I'm serious," the Doctor sighed. "You're a good person, at heart — but you've still got a manipulative underhandedness about you that undermines that goodness. The thought of you with absolute power… well, quite frankly, it terrifies me."

The grin faded, and Seo turned serious.

"It terrifies me, too," she agreed. "But I don't want power. I don't want to rule empires or be god of the universe or anything like that. I'm on way too many police wanted lists to benefit from _that_ kind of publicity."

The Doctor said nothing.

"The Key to Time isn't about power, Doctor," said Seo. "Not to me, at least. It's an artifact with the ability to stop and start time, across the universe. And that means… it's my only chance to prevent a universal and temporal catastrophe."

She slowed, then waved her hand in front of a random tapestry. The tapestry shimmered, then faded, revealing a hidden door.

"Inside," Seo commanded. "Before someone sees us."

"I thought you said you were manipulating everyone around here — so it wouldn't matter, even if anyone _did_ see us entering," said the Doctor. He tilted his head, sideways. "Or are you not actually as keen on mind control as you pretend?"

"Just because I _can_ do something, doesn't mean I actually _want_ to," Seo replied. "And not everyone's as easy to control as Astra." She pushed him inside. "Now, get in there."

She yanked the door shut, behind them, then re-established the tapestry disguise. She stood, a moment, by the door. Listening, to make sure no one had seen her enter.

Lucky for her, no one had.

 


	22. Chapter 22

"No one's outside," Seo said. She nodded, satisfied, then stepped away from the door, and approached the Key to Time.

She picked the Key up. Felt her hands tingle, as they held the small, crystal-looking cube.

Somehow, this Key to Time could unlock her Tevin powers. But only in regards to itself.

Seo closed her eyes, concentrating on the power of her right hand. It was her soul, her essence, and it was the deepest, most powerful ability of the Tevin.

When she opened her eyes, she could see the purple energy of her right hand swirling around and through the Key to Time. She watched as it reacted with the power of the Key, the energy shifting colors as it continued to swirl — eventually settling inside the Key, as a brilliant emerald glow.

But still.

The Key to Time didn't work.

"I've sacrificed so much of myself, to make this thing work," Seo said, staring at it. "But… here we are. One shot away from the start of the Time War. And my only way to stop that war… won't cooperate."

She set it down.

"Any bright ideas, Doctor?" she asked. "Or…?"

She trailed off, as she realized… the Doctor wasn't paying attention to her.

He was examining the elaborate and intricate machinery surrounding the small, glowing cube of the Key to Time. The machinery snaked around the room, its every connection and component precisely and elegantly hooked up to every other, the wires curving one round another like two snakes at play.

"This is… beautiful," the Doctor said. "Ingenious!"

"If you say so." Seo shrugged, stepping carefully around the equipment, to get over to him. "It seemed like a pretty obvious solution, to me. A Red Time field slows down time, while a Blue Time field speeds time up. If the Key to Time can stop and start the universe…"

"Then why not treat it as a relative time field, hook it up to a causational stabilizer you stole from a destroyed TARDIS," the Doctor continued, "and use that to slow down the events leading up to the Time War?"

"It worked perfectly for a long time," Seo said. "Delayed the war for decades."

"During which time, you've been taking advantage of the situation to systematically sabotage both sides," the Doctor said. "Making sure they can't actually _afford_ to go to war."

He spun around.

Raced over to Seo. And kissed her on the forehead.

"You are amazing!" the Doctor said. "Absolutely brilliant."

"Well… that makes a change from being called a pet, I guess," Seo said, with a shrug. She attempted to head back over to a section of machinery that had been hooked up to the Key to Time — to check, in case it was the culprit.

But the Doctor caught her by the shoulders.

"No, really," the Doctor said. "I mean it. I thought nothing in the universe could stop this war. But this…!" He glanced back. A tear shone in his eye. "It's the first time, in a while, that I've had real hope."

Seo examined him, carefully. "You really _don't_ want to fight, do you?" She shook her head. "But you're the Daleks' number one enemy!"

"I stop them when there's no one else to stop them," the Doctor said. "That doesn't mean I want a war." He let her go, and headed back to the machinery. "The only problem is…"

"…the Key's not working, right now," Seo agreed. "Ever since your President Romana began to die."

The Doctor could see that it wasn't working.

He could even feel it. Like the Key's energy was… distorted, somehow.

"I've been trying to fix it," Seo said. "I even called in Narvin. But… even between the two of us… we can't repair it, properly. While President Romana's dying, the Key to Time just won't work the way it should. And without it, events have escalated almost to breaking point."

"Enough so that you've gotten rather desperate," the Doctor said. "Teleporting into TARDISes. Stealing into Dalek bunkers. I imagine introducing Narvin into your group of Pacifists hasn't won you any friends."

Seo looked a little embarrassed. "Uh… to put it mildly…" She grimaced. "A few were already suspicious, though, because no one could remember me from the Olitzitz War."

The Doctor darted his eyes over to her. "Right, yes. You said. All of you were affected by that war. You all vowed never to let it happen, again."

"And I can't," Seo agreed. She bunched her hands into fists. "But the other Pacifists just don't understand! If we really want to stop the Time War, we _can't_ be impartial. We _do_ need Gallifrey's help!"

The Doctor observed her, carefully.

Thinking.

"The Daleks live to hate, Doctor," Seo said. "They're not going to sit back and suddenly think, 'oh, hang on, if I destroy the universe in a Time War, things will be much worse for me!' That'd never even enter their heads. They hate you, so they have to kill you. It's perfectly logical."

"Is it?" the Doctor asked.

"Astra and the others… they think they empathize with the Daleks," Seo said. "They think they know what it's like. But they've got no idea! Imagine being inside that pepper-pot shell. Just… locked away. No light. No warmth. No sun. You scream every word, because you're in so much pain. You feel that pain and that darkness pressing in all around you, and that's when you realize you hate the whole goddamn universe, and all those stupid, pain-free, walking-in-sunlight people inside it, who think they're just so great and so superior and so happy… but they're not. They're just a bunch of jerks. They don't matter. They don't deserve to be happy. They deserve to die."

The Doctor said nothing.

"Can you imagine living like that, Doctor?" Seo asked. "Living with no kindness. No happiness. No hope. Not even a glimmer of brightness to look forward to. Waking up every day, knowing there's nothing for you, in the future, except the darkness. The fear. That awful feeling you get when you're so… utterly alone."

"No," the Doctor admitted. "I can't."

"And that's my point," Seo confirmed. "The Time Lords have their faults, but they've never been like that. The only way to really make sure this war never happens is to change the Daleks. And don't you dare say that I can't… because I can! I know I can! Because…!"

She stopped herself.

Trailed off.

"Because you were like that, once," the Doctor said, softly. "And you changed."

Seo didn't answer.

" _You_ killed the Olitzitz, didn't you?" the Doctor asked. "Using the Nightmare Ring. The Olitzitz built a machine that was supposed to fix the vampires, give you all back your consciences… but you turned their machine against them. Wiped the Olitzitz out, in a single second."

Seo couldn't meet his eyes.

The Doctor, of course, was right.

"The Olitzitz took pity on me," Seo told him, her voice shaking. "They saw me for what I was — just a poor little girl who lost her daddy, who was kidnapped, tortured, and all alone. They took me in. Offered me love. Kindness. A better life. On one condition: I had to use their Dream Circle to change the other vampires — and to kill my sire." She shuddered. "Have you ever heard of Stockholm Syndrome, Doctor?"

The Doctor nodded.

"Well, the Olitzitz hadn't," Seo said. "That was what killed them." She paused, a long moment. Listened, as those words rang through the air. " _I_ was what killed them," she amended, in a whisper.

The Doctor reached out and touched her arm, gently. "That's why the other Pacifists don't remember you, from the war," he said. "That's why you've dyed your hair and probably bought the best facial nano-surgery this side of the Milky Way. You fought on the wrong side."

Seo didn't answer.

"You are the one person, in the universe," said the Doctor, "who both wants peace… and can completely empathize with a Dalek."

"I can find a way to change them!" Seo said. "I know I can! I almost did it, with the Nightmare Ring." She paused. "Or I would have, if the machine hadn't been modified and its temporal components fused, before I even arrived."

"Ah — so _that's_ what you were really up to, on that Dalek base," the Doctor said. "And the biodata extract — _Romana's_ biodata extract…"

"…would have stabilized President Romana's timeline, independently of whatever part of the Key to Time was causing the problem," Seo confirmed. "Yes." She sighed. "Still. The Nightmare Ring is gone, now. You blew it up. So I have to find another way."

"And if there is no other way?" the Doctor asked. "The Daleks won't just sit back and let you drive them into bankruptcy. The more money you steal from them, the more planets they'll ravage, to reclaim what they've lost."

"Don't you think I know that?" Seo's eyes remained determined. "I will find a way, Doctor. I will stop this war!"

The Doctor looked sad. His face slipped into resignation.

"I was on Skaro when the Daleks were born," the Doctor told her. "I was supposed to change them. I didn't manage it. Now… they're watching their own history like hawks. It's time-locked. No one can alter it." He turned back to the machinery, with a sigh. "You can't change history. Not anymore. The only way out of this mess… is to look forwards."

For a while, neither said a word.

The Doctor shifted his gaze back to the machinery surrounding the Key to Time, his mind racing to figure out any way to make Seo's plan work.

"It's… not reality-locked," Seo said, in a small voice.

The Doctor blinked. Frowned.

"Doctor," Seo said. "How do you think I got us here? How do you think I fixed the Key to Time, or even just got the segments back, after you'd destroyed them?"

He turned back to her.

"It's the greatest gift of the Tevin," Seo told him. "The one gift of the right hand, which only TARDIS coral or the Key to Time can activate." She showed him her right hand. "The ability to change reality."

"But you said you lost your power of the right hand," the Doctor reminded her. "The only way to get it back is to use it on the Key to Time — which wouldn't have the power to change the Daleks — or to fry a TARDIS. And it'll take _a lot_ of fried TARDISes, to alter the Daleks' history past a time-lock."

"There is another way," Seo said. "I could ask… my…"

She stopped. All of a sudden, she looked terrified.

She'd gone up against Daleks. Rodians. Sil. Even corrupt and insane Time Lords. But the Doctor had never seen her look like this.

"My abilities don't just go away, you know," Seo said, her voice little more than a squeak. "I can… get them back…"

"I thought you said you couldn't," the Doctor replied. "Your sire took away the power of your hands, and made them just normal hands. Therefore, he would have been the only one… who could have given you back…"

The Doctor stopped.

Realized…

"Your sire's still alive, isn't he?" the Doctor asked. "You killed all the vampires — _except_ him."

Seo said nothing. Her hands were shaking.

"Why?" the Doctor asked.

"I… just… couldn't," Seo said. She didn't meet the Doctor's eyes. "It's complicated."

The Doctor thought he understood.

"Always pays to have that little bit of hope," the Doctor acknowledged, "that one day, if you keep him alive, he might give you back every power and ability he stole from you."

Seo shook her head.

"I won't get them back," she said. "I betrayed him. Killed everyone else and locked him up, forever. He'll never forgive that."

The Doctor frowned.

"That's not why he's still alive," Seo said. "He's a psychotic, homicidal maniac, Doctor. For the sake of the universe, I _should_ have killed him. I know that. I… just… can't. He's important to me. It's hard to explain." She sighed. Looked down at her hands. "Or maybe you're right. Maybe it's just selfishness — thinking I can get my powers back. And… if I delay this war, long enough, maybe… one day… he'll…"

She stopped talking.

She wasn't sure she could say the next part. The thought of getting her powers back, enough to almost become the person she would have been, if her father hadn't died and she'd never been made a monster…

It was too much to wish for.

She already knew, deep down inside, that it would never happen.

"No," Seo said, dropping her hands to her side. "I can't just sit around, waiting for my sire to give back my abilities. I have to… I don't know… find another way. Any other way."

The Doctor put a hand on her shoulder.

She looked up, into his eyes.

"First," he said, "we save Romana. Fix the Key to Time. Stop the universe from getting any closer to starting a Time War. Then… you can work on convincing your sire to give you back your powers."

"But he won't," said Seo. "I _know_ he won't."

The Doctor winked at her. "Didn't you say you'd been wrapping the Pacifists around your little finger? No reason you can't do the same with your sire. Is there?"

Seo gave a small smile.

As she started to think that maybe… just maybe…

"But first, we save Romana," the Doctor said. "Agreed?"

Seo nodded. "Agreed."

The Doctor grinned. Then sprinted for the door, and yanked it open. "In which case…!"

Seo tried to jump forwards and stop him, before he could step outside. He hadn't even checked to make sure the coast was clear! Had he forgotten where he was?!

But it was too late.

The moment the Doctor opened the door, he found himself facing a group of heavily armed Rodians, all pointing energy rifles squarely at Seo and the Doctor.

"Hello, Time Lord," said Liantor, shoving a gemstone into the Doctor's face. "What do you think of my prize?"


	23. Chapter 23

The moment the Doctor saw that gemstone, he felt something stabbing through his eyes and trying to penetrate his mind. He threw up psychic defenses, and struggled, as the gemstone mounted a savage offensive against him.

Outside his mind, the Doctor could hear a yelp as the Rodians restrained Seo. He could hear her fighting against them, could hear her struggling to get free while also trying to figure out what the hell was happening to the Doctor.

"Secure whatever is in that hidden chamber," Liantor commanded his men. "I'd love to see what kinds of secrets Seo has been hiding on this planet."

The Doctor tore his eyes away from the gemstone, grabbed his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket, and flicked the tip towards the door.

The door to the secret room that housed the Key to Time suddenly sealed shut, nearly clipping off the fingers of the Rodian nearest it.

"Force the door open!" Liantor commanded.

His men stepped forwards, and tried their hardest — but the door wouldn't budge. When brute strength failed, they took up their arms and opened fire on the door. Nothing. They rammed it with the butts of their guns.

But nothing they could do would even dent it.

"Nice shielding," the Doctor told Seo. "Couldn't have done better, myself. Trans-dimensional, is it?"

Seo didn't answer his question. Her face was bent with worry. "Are you okay, Doctor?"

"Fine, fine," the Doctor said. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Seo quirked an eyebrow at him. "Uh… because you're sprawled on the floor?"

The Doctor looked around himself, and realized… she was right. He _was_ sprawled on the floor. He must have collapsed, when he was battling off that psychic influence.

Interesting.

Liantor spun around, to face the Doctor.

"Open it, Time Lord," Liantor demanded. He gestured at his men, who aimed their weapons at the Doctor. "Or I'll kill you."

The Doctor grinned. "Nah. I don't think so. If you wanted me dead, you'd have shot me by now."

"I've heard that Time Lords don't die, when you shoot them," Liantor mused. "They just change bodies. So I can kill you as many times as I want… and you'll just keep coming back to life."

The Doctor opened his mouth, to answer this.

But then he caught sight of Astra, hiding nearby, gesturing at him to be ready. And, suddenly, an explosion shattered the air around them, the floor crumbled beneath their feet, and both Seo and the Doctor felt themselves falling through the air… down, down…

The Doctor and Seo landed on top of a pile of Rodian soldiers, all of whom were dazed or knocked out, from the fall.

"No," the Doctor said, jumping to his feet and looking around himself, suddenly excited. "It can't be!"

Seo grabbed him by the hand. "We've gotta run! Before those soldiers wake up!"

"I know this place!" the Doctor cried, as the two sprinted from the subterranean chamber, where they had fallen, and into another subterranean chamber. "I remember! From last time I was on Atrios! This is the bunker!"

"Yes, these are radiation bunkers," Seo confirmed. "I found the Atrians cowering inside these, when I first arrived." She squinted around herself, peering through the darkness, as she ran. "Admittedly, not _this_ bunker, in particular. It must have been sealed off, due to high radiation level."

"It was!" the Doctor confirmed. "But that's how they kept the technology secret. Somewhere down here, there's a teleport to Zeos!"

Seo stared. "A teleport?! But Atrios doesn't have that level of technology."

"Nope, it doesn't," the Doctor confirmed.

He could hear the Rodian troops regrouping, and could hear Liantor shouting down more commands, to them. He glanced back, to see the remaining soldiers fastening ropes to the top of the hole and sliding down, into the bunker.

He sped up.

"Tell me, Seo," he said, as they ran, "what do you know about the Gem of Braxiatel?"

Seo thought about this. "I've heard of Braxiatel. Not of a Gem of Braxiatel. Irving Braxiatel's the guy who owns that art collection on Planetoid KS-159, right?"

"That's the one," the Doctor confirmed. He gave her a sidelong glance. "Don't tell me you've stolen from him, too?"

Seo shot the Doctor a grin and a shrug.

"And you never thought that might be a bad idea?" the Doctor asked.

Seo sighed. "Braxiatel houses his gallery in an exact replica of the palace of Versailles," she replied. "Complete with gold, silver, and jewels. A guy that rich won't miss a few little trinkets disappearing, from time to time."

"Trinkets… or gemstones," the Doctor said.

"Okay, yeah, every so often, I stole the occasional…" Seo began. Then paused, as this sunk in. "Oh. I'm starting to see where you're going with all this."

"Braxiatel's a Time Lord," the Doctor said. "And, at times, can be a little vindictive. Do you know what he does to thieves?"

"I can guess," Seo said. "He gives them something to steal that will cause their downfall. Something like… a gemstone."

"A gemstone they'll then sell off, on the black market, allowing it to move freely until it can circle back to the original target." The Doctor nodded. "Exactly. The Gem of Braxiatel is not an ancient artifact designed to show people the truth about their past. It's a trap for you, Seo. And your overwhelming greed and selfishness has sprung it."

"Hey!" Seo protested. "I'll admit to the overwhelming greed — but I'm not selfish."

The Doctor snorted.

"I'm not!" Seo said. "Sure, I'm crooked. But 98% of everything I earn, I pour into rebuilding dying planets and saving their populations." She gestured at her outfit. "I buy my clothes at thrift shops, for crying out loud! And my apartment's just a crappy one bedroom with no heat!"

"What was it you told me? No one saves planets for nothing?" the Doctor reminded her. "I'm sure you've got some way this planet rebuilding scheme benefits you." He shook his head, as he directed her into another corridor. "I mean, just look at Atrios! You say you're here to help, you say you want nothing in return… but that's a lie. You saved Atrios and Astra because _they_ could help _you_."

"Help me prevent a war!" Seo protested. "The war _your_ people are starting!" She shook her head. "What's wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with _me_?" the Doctor retorted. "You've torn apart entire worlds with your bare hands, and you're asking what's wrong with _me_?!"

Seo looked away. "Okay. Fair enough."

"To be honest, Seo, you disgust me," the Doctor said. He tugged her arm, leading her into another chamber of the underground bunker. "Most enemies I've faced down only _wish_ they could have done the things you have. All those deaths! It's abhorrent. It's obscene."

"I said, 'fair enough'!" Seo yanked her arm away from him. "What do you want, a signed confession? I screwed up. I admit it! I was a kid, at the time; I was angry, I was stupid, I should have known better — but I didn't. You think I'm happy about it, now?"

The Doctor grabbed her by the arm, again, and dragged her after him. "Come on. They're still right behind us."

Seo trudged after him, still feeling slightly irritated by their fight.

The Doctor, however, was furious. He just couldn't get over it. He didn't understand why it hadn't struck him, before… the magnitude of what she had done! And even now, what she kept doing…!

"How long did it take you to perfect that act?" the Doctor asked her. "You know. The one where you pretend to be friendly and congenial and warm — to hide what you are, inside?"

Seo gave a frustrated sigh. "You've really got it in for me, today, haven't you?"

They turned to the right, raced into another corridor.

"For your information, it's not an act," Seo said. "I happen to _like_ being congenial and warm and having friends. I enjoy helping people fix their planets and rebuild their civilizations. I'm not 'pretending' to have compassion."

"And yet, you manipulate your friends and rewrite their memories," the Doctor pointed out. "You can force Astra to do anything you want, just by saying a few words. You're not a Great Rebuilder. You're a power-hungry tyrant!"

Seo shot him a frustrated stare. "Okay, seriously. What did I do? Kick your pet hamster? Why are you suddenly so furious at me?"

The Doctor slowed, as they approached the teleport. "I don't know," he admitted. "That's very strange." Now that he thought about it… the whole thing bothered him. Like there was an itch he couldn't scratch, deep down inside his mind. "In fact, every time I look at you, it's as if I really want to hurt you. Fascinating."

Seo backed away, her hands raised. "Oh, no…"

"I'd even tear down whole planets, to make you suffer," the Doctor mused. "And that's not like me. Not at all."

Seo bolted towards the teleport, but the Doctor yanked out his sonic and buzzed it at the machinery. The teleport erupted into sparks.

"Doctor, listen to me," Seo said, as he advanced on her. "This isn't you. It's that gemstone, controlling you."

"I know!" the Doctor replied, still deep in thought. "Which is odd, don't you think? After all, I put up quite a struggle. I was positive I'd blocked its psychic influence. So why do I still feel like I hate you?" He leapt towards her, and Seo shoved herself back against the far wall, trying to get as far away from him as she could. "In fact… the feeling seems to get stronger, the closer I am to you! See? Interesting. I wonder if _you're_ the source. Hmmm…"

"I don't want to fight you," Seo warned the Doctor. "But I will, if I have to."

"I really don't think you will," the Doctor replied, pointing his sonic at the ceiling. Bits of machinery and heavy stones crashed down, around her, surrounding her and separating her from the Doctor. The Doctor looked down at the sonic, surprised. "See? Now that isn't something I should have done, either. What's that Gem of Braxiatel actually doing, up in my mind? Not rewriting it, exactly… but…"

"Don't worry about it," said Liantor, as he marched into the room — a retinue of armed soldiers flanking him. "The Gem of Braxiatel reveals the hidden truth about her. That's all you need to know."

"Well… no, it doesn't," the Doctor argued. He knew he should be stepping in between Seo and Liantor, right now, to protect her from him… but he physically couldn't do it. "It does more than that. Aren't you interested? I know I am."

"I've used sophisticated technology to access the Gem of Braxiatel, remotely," Liantor said. "If you get beyond the psychic trap, Doctor, you'll see… every secret of her life is laid out, inside. In incredible detail." He gestured at his men. "Take her."

But Seo wasn't going without a fight.

As the first soldier climbed over fallen rubble and approached, Seo sprang at him, shoving him back with a kick and delivering a swinging punch to a guy from her right. Another grabbed her arm, but she elbowed him and swung him against a wall.

"This is getting ridiculous," Liantor said. He called out: "You're surrounded, Seo! Give up!"

Seo flipped one of the soldiers over her back. "Not on your life."

Liantor gritted his teeth, in irritation. "I've had more than enough of this." He spun on the Doctor. "Time Lord. Take her down."

The Doctor didn't move.

He was finally starting to get the measure of this psychic influence… and maybe, if he just kept fighting…

"You can't fight the Gem's power, Time Lord," Liantor said. He fished something out of his pocket. "Heads up!"

The Doctor spun around, and caught the thing Liantor had just flung at his head — before it could impact.

It was that Gem of Braxiatel, again.

The Doctor couldn't tear his eyes away. He could feel it starting to burrow through his psychic defenses, and this time, he couldn't even erect psychic shields or protect himself or… or…

Seo cried out, and the Doctor suddenly snapped his head up. One of the guards had just knocked the butt of his rifle into her temple, and she'd slumped down, unconscious.

The moment she lost consciousness… the Doctor realized he could think, again.

"Well, that's her, dealt with," Liantor said. "And with a second dose, the Time Lord is well and truly under my…"

The Doctor, in a surge of self-will, ran towards the teleport.

The soldiers were still working on dragging Seo off of it. The Doctor didn't mind them. He clutched the Gem of Braxiatel, tightly, in one hand. And, with the other, buzzed his sonic screwdriver at the panel.

The teleport lit up, again, as he stepped onto it.

"Stop him!" Liantor shouted. "He's still holding the Gem of Brax…!"

A flash of light surrounded the Doctor. And, next thing he knew, he was on the abandoned planet Zeos. Still clutching that Gem of Braxiatel.

He buzzed his sonic at the teleport controls on that end, to sabotage the machine and stop the others getting through. Then he wavered, and fell to the ground, his brain shutting itself down so it could rid itself of the unwanted psychic influence.

The last thing he wondered, as he lost consciousness, was whether Seo had teleported with him… or if he'd just left her behind.


	24. Chapter 24

"Where did he go?" Liantor demanded, trying, in vain, to reactivate the teleport. "Get him back here!"

The soldiers all tried. But they couldn't.

"Atrios doesn't have interplanetary teleport technology," Liantor muttered, to himself, turning away. "So he must still be somewhere on this planet. I just don't know where."

No matter.

Liantor was already thinking up a way to use this to his advantage.

"Set up the Atmospheric Removal Bomb," Liantor ordered his men. "If it goes off, and Atrios is destroyed — Seo's heart will break, and I'll achieve my goal. I can retrieve the Gem of Braxiatel from the ruins."

"And… if the Time Lord disables the bomb, sir?" said one of the soldiers.

Liantor smirked, as he watched the others restrain the unconscious Seo. "Then either he'll be in my power… or he'll come after her," he said. "And that will be even more to my advantage."

* * *

When the Doctor came to, again… he felt perfectly fine.

Not a trace of that pesky Gem of Braxiatel left, inside his head!

"You're a very tricky little trap, aren't you?" the Doctor said, to the gemstone. He analyzed it, carefully… making sure to strengthen his psychic defenses more strategically, this time, to avoid falling prey to it, again. "Designed to perfectly counter any normal psychic defense, without letting the victim know that you have. You sort of… creep in. Infect whoever sees you with a burning, lonely, desolate rage, along with a hatred strong enough to destroy whole…"

The Doctor trailed off.

Oh dear.

He remembered this, from back when he was in the chamber with the Key to Time. Seo had said something to him…

About what it was like to be so lonely and so hateful…

How she _knew_ how it felt, to be angry enough to destroy a whole…

Aha!

"That's it, isn't it?" the Doctor said, his eyes lighting up. "You're designed to pick up on your thief's most negative impulses, across her whole life, and then inject those into the people around her."

Presumably, the gemstone had been intended to latch onto something more mundane, such as greed or jealousy.

Braxiatel obviously hadn't realized, when he'd created this little trap, that Seo's most negative impulse was a childlike, planet-destroying rage and hatred.

"Well, easy enough to tweak, now that I know how it works," the Doctor said.

He reached into his pocket, and picked out the pieces of Seo's broken TARDIS teleport device — the one she'd dropped, when she'd been whisked out of his TARDIS.

And got to work.

* * *

Queen Astra was trying to calm everyone down, while, at the same time, trying not to panic, herself.

"Call in all of our greatest scientists!" Astra commanded. "All our experts in bomb disposal. We'll survive this, I promise!"

No one was doing what she said, though.

To be fair, it was a gigantic bomb, and a type that nobody on Atrios had ever seen, before. Astra was sure that, if Seo were here, she'd know how to disarm it.

But Seo was long gone.

"Well, things seem to have gone south, fast, while I've been gone," the Doctor said, as he strode into the chamber that held the bomb.

"Doctor!" Astra cried, jumping a foot into the air.

When she'd seen Liantor's men hauling only Seo out of the radiation bunker, she'd thought the Doctor was dead. She'd even gone down there, to find him — and, when she didn't, she'd wept over his death.

But here he was.

Still alive.

The Doctor kept tossing a gemstone into the air and catching it, as his eyes scanned the chamber. They landed on the bomb. "Ah, perfect! Just what I need!"

Astra's eyes went wide. "But… it's a bomb!"

"Yes, yes, I can see that," the Doctor confirmed, leaping over to it. He began to buzz at it with his sonic screwdriver. "Nasty one, too. Atmospheric Removal Bomb! Could wipe out all life on the planet! Well, luckily, I have plenty of experience disarming these."

The bomb gave a small hiss. Then a click.

Then it powered down.

"Good news is, if you cannibalize it, correctly," the Doctor said, taking the bomb apart, "you can hook it up to a psychic signal… like the one in this gemstone, here…"

The doors to the palace burst open.

A squad of Rodian soldiers ran into the chamber, armed to the teeth. "Kill the Time Lord!" they shouted.

The Doctor ducked for cover, as the guards opened fire.

"That's hardly fair," the Doctor muttered, trying to create his new device. "You can't plant a bomb on a planet, and then leave your own men behind, to get blown up by it! This 'Grand Statesman Ergun' fellow seems a bit mad, if you ask me."

He had to work fast.

If the soldiers hit the wrong thing, in that disarmed bomb, the whole thing could go off, anyways.

"And there's only one reason you'd be trying to blow yourselves up," the Doctor reasoned. He finished constructing his little gadget. "It's because you've had a very unhealthy dose of this."

Then, with one last small tweak, he fastened the Gem of Braxiatel into his device, and switched it on.

The back blast blew the Doctor across the room and slammed him into the far walll. The Doctor gritted his teeth, and adjusted a lever on the side of his gizmo.

The back blast died down.

Then… stopped.

Astra picked herself up, off the floor, hesitantly. Dusted off her gown. "What… did you…?"

"The Gem of Braxiatel was tuned to pick up the most negative emotion or impulse Seo's felt, across her life, and transmit it to whomever looked inside," the Doctor explained, regaining his footing. "I simply reversed the programming, so the gem would undo its brainwashing."

The soldiers were getting up. They looked confused, but more sane and rational than they'd been, for a long time, now.

"Then I crafted this little gizmo, here, to amplify it across the entire planet!" the Doctor saidl. He tapped it, with a grin.

The gizmo promptly fell apart.

"Oh," the Doctor said, with a frown. "Well. Easy come, easy go." He spun back to Astra. "Where's Seo, by the way? I'm assuming it'll be easy to rescue her, now that I've reversed the effects of the Gem of Braxiatel."

Astra cringed. "General Liantor took her, Doctor. I'm sorry."

"Took her…?" the Doctor started.

But he didn't need to finish that sentence.

"She's on Rodia, isn't she?" the Doctor asked. "At Grand Statesman Ergun's mercy."

"I'm sorry, Doctor," Astra said, again. "I couldn't stop them."

The Doctor sighed. "No, I'm sure you couldn't." He tucked the Gem of Braxiatel into his pocket, then headed back to his TARDIS. "Well, turns out, this is a typical adventure. I pick up a companion, she runs off on her own, gets into all sorts of trouble, and next thing I know, I have to rush off to rescue her."

He shook his head.

And headed back to his TARDIS.


	25. Chapter 25

Grand Statesman Ergun stretched out his back, as he finished writing.

He spent so much time, these days, writing. It was as if he hoped that, by writing it all down, he could make some kind of sense of the war and the Olitzitz and everything that had happened.

But his prose was imprecise, overcomplicated, and confusing. Just like the war.

"'When I was a young boy, the Olitzitz weren't something you saw or heard or could strike up a conversation with,'" Ergun read, aloud. "'The Olitzitz were for stories and legends and prayers.'"

His wife, Brihana, looked up.

"'I used to hear old men tell us tales of the Olitzitz gods and the struggle of light against…'" Ergun scowled. Then scrunched up the paper into a ball, and threw it away. "No, no, no. That's terrible."

Brihana came over to him. Picked up the crumpled paper, smoothed it, and glanced through it.

"'In the beginning, the elders said, there was nothing,'" Brihana read. "'Then came a Big Bang that exploded with light, flooding the nothing. In that moment, I was told, all was perfect — because all was light. But with light came darkness, and with the Big Bang came time.'" She looked up at Ergun. "It's not so bad."

"But it doesn't capture it right!" Ergun insisted. He snatched the paper from Brihana. "'The light and dark both saw time, and realized they could use time to fight one another. Over the ages, the darkness evolved into the Enemy, while the light evolved into the Olitzitz gods, high and mighty, saviors of…'" Ergun shoved the paper away from him, disgusted. "No. It's just drivel. It doesn't explain it. Not at all."

Brihana sat down, beside her husband. Rested a hand on his arm, to comfort him.

"The war between the Olitzitz and the Enemy… it was always just a parable!" Ergun said. "A metaphor for the struggles of conscience! Some people didn't even believe the Olitzitz really existed." He turned to Brihana. "But then, one day, they showed up. The unseen gods, who control our lives from afar… they _showed up_. They were on TV!"

"I remember," Brihana said.

Ergun clung to her hands. "And, in the end… they died. All of them. The immortal, omniscient, omnipotent ones… just… died. Like they were _people_."

"A thousand stars fell, on the night the Olitzitz died," Brihana said. "I watched it happen. We didn't know what it meant."

Ergun turned away. He got up from the bench, went over to the bookshelf where he kept his many other works-in-progress. None of them ever captured it perfectly. None of them ever… really… made sense of it.

"I knew what it meant," Ergun said. He shuddered at the memory that had slithered, unbidden, into his mind… and tried to push it out. "It was a mission. A purpose. One person killed the Olitzitz, Brihana. One… very evil, very powerful person."

He grabbed one of his notebooks off the shelf. It fell open, in his hands — to that one scene he'd tried to write down, over and over again.

The moment he saw the god-killer.

The moment he thought he was going to die.

"How can there ever be peace in the universe, when the girl who murdered the gods and destroyed Heaven still lives?" Ergun said. "I must find that girl — the one the Olitzitz called 'the Child'. I must hunt her down, and wipe her from the face of existence."

The door burst open, and Liantor entered. He bowed, before his parents.

"Father," Liantor said. "As commanded, I have brought you the woman, Seosyrae. She is restrained and awaiting interrogation in Prison Cell 24."

Ergun shoved the notebook back onto the bookshelf. "And? Is she talking?"

"No, Father," said Liantor. "She claims, as before, that the Child is dead. She will not reveal the location of the demon you wish to slay."

Ergun's hands clenched into fists, as he heard this news.

"I can make her talk, Father," Liantor said. "I've done so, before."

Ergun held up a hand. "No, Liantor. Not yet." Ergun picked up his walking stick, and headed towards the prison cells. "I want to see her, first. I want to make sure she knows… how much her silence has caused me to suffer."

* * *

When they opened the door to Seo's cell, they discovered she'd been half-way to escaping, already.

She'd already unlocked and shed her arm manacles, and she'd been working on the leg-cuffs.

"Oh," Seo said, freezing in place. "Ergun. Hello. Fancy seeing you, here."

Ergun barked at his men to restrain her, again — "…and make sure she can't get free, this time! What are you, amateurs?!"

She'd escaped from their prisons so many times, by now, that Ergun felt his men really should have figured this one out.

When they were sure she was secure and couldn't possibly escape… they stepped back, saluting Ergun.

Ergun stepped closer to Seo. Studied her, carefully.

Seo was now bolted to the wall — manacles around her arms, her legs, and an iron band around her waist. They'd practically had to weld her in, she was so determined to break free.

"Is this really necessary?" Seo asked Ergun, struggling against her bonds. "We used to be friends."

" _I_ felt friendship towards _you_ ," Ergun countered. "But you never felt it for me."

Seo gave up the struggle, as it became clear she couldn't break out. "I did, Ergun. You, and Brihana, and Liantor, too. We were so close, once. We were going to save the world, together." She glanced around herself. "Now, you're destroying the world, your wife's too scared to speak out, your son's become a military maniac, and I'm chained to a wall. What happened?"

Ergun dismissed the question.

None of this was important. Nor were those days, long ago, when they'd been friends. There was only one thing still important…

One great mission, in his life…

"Do you remember the night the gods died, Seo?" Ergun asked her. He leaned on his walking stick. "They say a thousand stars fell, that night. The sky cried with tears of shining light, as the Olitzitz died."

Seo shook her head. "The planet Crelusia blew up, a hundred years before," she said. "It took that long for the fragments to reach the Rodian atmosphere. I'm sorry… but the stars didn't fall. The night didn't cry."

Ergun's hand shook, around his walking stick. "It was a metaphor, you idiot," he grumbled.

"Oh." Seo gave a sheepish grin. "Right! I knew that."

He stepped towards her. "You told me, once, that there was no point in revenge," said Ergun. "The Enemy are all dead, now, you said. All I could do was move on, and try to accept what had happened. And… I did find evidence to support _most_ of your claim. The Enemy _are_ all dead." He glared at her. "Except one. The clever one. The one the Olitzitz called 'the Child'."

Seo said nothing.

"She's still alive," Ergun said. "And you know where she is. You're hiding her from me."

Seo shook her head, sadly.

But still said nothing.

"Don't you understand?!" Ergun snapped. "I will seek her out! I will vanquish her! I must! My life will never be complete, without that final meeting. I will never know peace until I bathe in her blood."

"The Olitzitz are gone, Ergun," Seo said. "The war's over. But there's a bigger war, waiting to happen. Don't you think it's more important to stop that one, than to sit around, brooding about ours?"

"They're the same!" Ergun said. He threw up his free hand, into the air. "The wars are connected! Don't you understand? One leads to the other. The Olitzitz are dead, but one of the Enemy remains. And that means evil still remains, both in the cosmos and in the hearts of man. It's a simple matter of spirituality: we cannot stop the Time War, unless we vanquish evil. Killing the Child will vanquish that evil."

"That's not true, Ergun," Seo insisted. "The Olitzitz lied to your people. They weren't gods, and the Enemy wasn't the devil."

"Blasphemy!" Ergun accused.

"Killing one person won't wipe out all the evil in the universe," said Seo. "Trust me — the Olitzitz War isn't causing the Time War. They're not connected."

"They are — through that Child," said Ergun. He shook his head, sadly. Stepped away from her. "You're a fool, Seosyrae. You say you want peace, yet by protecting the Child, you're causing the Time War. And you can't even see what you're doing!"

He turned, to leave.

"Ergun," Seo called after him.

Ergun paused. Glanced over his shoulder.

"Just… I'm sorry," Seo said.

"If you were really sorry, you'd tell me the truth," said Ergun. He left the cell, and turned to his son. "Make her talk, Liantor. I don't care how."

Liantor saluted. "Right away, Father."

"But don't kill her," Ergun added, as an afterthought. "I owe her that much, at least." He gave a frustrated sigh, as he made his way away from the prison cell. He didn't want to stay and hear her scream — he wasn't sadistic.

He just needed her to tell him what she knew.

"Ever since the early universe, there was good and evil — the forces of light and the forces of darkness," Ergun muttered to himself. "Now, Heaven has fallen and the gods are dead. But if I can vanquish the last of the forces of darkness… there will, finally, be a lasting peace."


	26. Chapter 26

Liantor waited until his father had gone far away, before he so much as touched Seo. And when he did, it was not using an implement of torture, as Seo had expected.

He placed his hand on her cheek.

"What does your Time Lord lover say, I wonder, as he undresses you?" Liantor mused. "What does he say, as he thrusts…?"

"It's none of your business," Seo cut in, before he could go on. She gritted her teeth. "If you want to torture me, just get out the thumb screws, already. I've had more than enough of your obsession with my sex life."

Liantor traced his finger down the side of her cheek. "Oh, but what could Narvin say or do," he continued, "that _I_ couldn't say or do, _better_?"

Okay.

Seo was _really_ not liking this, now.

"Get your hands off me, Liantor," Seo warned.

"It's strange — I've known you since I was a little boy," Liantor continued. "Yet, until I learned the secrets inside the Gem of Braxiatel, I never thought of you as anything but my parents' once-friend and now-enemy. You were a pawn. A tool." His smile broadened. "Then… I learned what you could do. What you had done."

Seo said nothing.

"There is so much beauty in conquest and destruction," Liantor continued. His eyes glowed, with the memory of what he'd seen inside the Gem of Braxiatel. "How much more beautiful does that make you — who has turned whole planets to dust?"

"How do you know about that?" Seo whispered. Her eyes flitted across the prison, checking to make sure no one had heard.

Liantor grinned at her. "My father wants to know where he can find the vampire who killed the Olitzitz. You almost confessed it, once — but I couldn't believe the truth. I needed just a little bit more, to be sure. The Gem of Braxiatel gave me more than enough to verify who and what you really are."

The breath caught in Seo's throat.

"I want an empire," said Liantor. "I want loyal armies who will do anything I say. I want doting subjects who will fall at my feet, eager to fulfill my every command. With your help… that wish can become a reality."

Seo didn't even hesitate. "No."

"You haven't heard…" Liantor began.

"I won't destroy or conquer planets for you," Seo interrupted. "Not now. Not ever. I'm not your soldier."

"I never asked you to be a soldier," Liantor said. He drew his hand along her curves. "You're a beautiful woman, Seo. The people of Rodia adore you. The people of Atrios adore you. Whole planets would follow you to Hell itself, if you led them. You already have an enormous collection of planets you've saved from the brink of death and rebuilt. With you, as my wife… I will use those planets to forge myself an unbeatable army, and create an empire that stretches through the stars."

To make his point, he grabbed her by the chin and tried to kiss her.

Seo forced her head to the side, to avoid the kiss.

"I changed your diapers, back when you were a baby!" Seo argued. "This is… just… wrong! On so many levels!"

"After being with _me_ , for a night, you'll forget all about Narvin," Liantor promised. "I am a thousand times the man that he is."

And the whole Narvin-thing was just getting stupid.

Especially since the Time Lords were one of the least sexual intelligent-species that Seo had ever encountered. Liantor's fantasies about Seo and Narvin weren't just creepy — they were also wildly inaccurate.

"I love Narvin in a way you'd never understand," Seo said. "And he loves me. Trust me, Liantor — you can't hope to replace him." She glared at him. "Besides. You're not really in love with me. You only love power."

"But don't you see? That's why I _have_ to marry you!" Liantor said. "Right now, I'm stuck making deals with aliens or using strange and unusual gemstones, in order to gain the power, respect, and devotion I need for my ambitions. With you… I don't have to. One word from you, and I will have complete loyalty. The people of Rodia would do anything for you."

He tried to kiss her, again.

But Seo still resisted.

Liantor scowled and stepped away from her — trying another tactic.

"If you don't marry me," Liantor threatened, "I'll kill Narvin."

"Oh, yeah?" Seo grinned. "He's on Gallifrey, right now. Wanna hop over there and try to bypass their transduction barriers and planetary shields?"

Liantor frowned.

He obviously knew he didn't stand a chance at kidnapping Narvin off Gallifrey.

So, instead, he moved on to plan B. He gestured at the door. "You showed some passing concern for your _current_ Time Lord companion. I could destroy _him_."

"You'll have to catch him, first," Seo replied. She met his eyes, evenly. "And you won't."

Liantor scowled, again.

"I'm not going to give you what you want, Liantor," Seo said. "And if you take me, by force, word will get out — and this whole planet will hate you."

Liantor knew it.

He stepped away from her.

"I'm still under _my father's_ orders to torture you, though," Liantor said. "And until you agree to marry me, I don't have the power to overrule him." He picked up a torture implement, off a rack by the door. "So if you want this to stop… just whisper: 'I do'. And I can end it."

Seo bit her tongue.

She'd never, ever say it.

"Let's begin," said Liantor.

* * *

The Doctor's TARDIS materialized on the planet Rodia.

"Fifty seventh time's the charm, then!" the Doctor said, as he finally saw that the coordinates matched the ones he was aiming for.

The Olitzitz War really had mucked up local space-time, hadn't it? The TARDIS didn't like it, one little bit. It had been all he could do, to get her to land here!

The Doctor shrugged on his jacket, and stepped out the door. He'd already made a replacement psychic amplifier, for the Gem of Braxiatel, and he was prepared to use it.

The Doctor found himself outside a hospital.

He stepped forwards, to examine what was going on. The hospital was overflowing. There were sick people lined up, outside, begging to get in. Meanwhile, out a side door, orderlies kept bringing bodies to dump into a mass grave.

"An epidemic," the Doctor said, tucking away the Gem of Braxiatel. He couldn't use the gem to stop a disease.

The Doctor stepped forwards, to ask what this was all about… but before he could, he found himself grabbed from behind and dragged out of the street and behind a pile of crates.

"What do you think you're doing?!" a voice hissed, in his ear. "Are all Time Lords this stupid, or just you?"

The Doctor wanted to point out that, actually, he was rather brilliant.

But the person holding him clapped a hand over his mouth and whispered, "Sh!" into his ear.

Beyond the crates, the Doctor could see a military patrol marching down the street, well armed and on the lookout for trouble. The moment they spotted his TARDIS, they surrounded it, and called up their Supreme General.

"Yes, a big blue box," one of the patrol confirmed. He squinted up at the top. "Police public call box, it says. Never been here, before." He paused, listening to the response. "Yes, sir. Right away, sir."

He turned to his fellows.

"You three, secure the box," he commanded. "Everyone else, spread out, find the Time Lord. He can't have gone far."

"We should move," whispered the voice in the Doctor's ear.

The hands let him go, and the Doctor turned, to discover a female Rodian with coarse skin, blistered hands, and sunken eyes. She looked like she'd been running for a very long time, and hadn't had enough to eat in days.

"You know who I am?" the Doctor asked.

"I know you've got pink skin, five fingers on each hand, and you appeared out of nowhere in a trumpeting roar," said the Rodian woman. "I could guess the rest." She wiped away some of the filth, on the street — to reveal a manhole cover. "Elsiwith."

"El… what?"

"My name," Elsiwith said. She gave a hacking cough that shook her to the core, then managed to drag the cover off the manhole, and gestured at the Doctor to follow her. "Down here. I'll take you to the freedom fighter base. You'll be safe, there."

The Doctor followed her, replacing the manhole cover as he descended.

"So… this Ergun fellow," the Doctor said, "doesn't like Time Lords, much?"

Elsiwith shrugged. "It's not all Time Lords he hates, just the one who usually visits, here," she said. "Man named Narvin. You know him?"

"Unfortunately," the Doctor sighed.

Elsiwith seemed to agree with this sentiment. "I hear you. Stuck up. Arrogant. Rude. Always talks down to people. Definitely not the easiest guy to get along with."

Elsiwith reached the bottom, and climbed off the ladder. The Doctor leapt down, and followed her, as she crept along the side of the sewer.

"Still, the Great Rebuilder is very fond of him," said Elsiwith, "and I'd never displease her by being rude to Narvin."

The Doctor frowned, thinking of the polluted and diseased world, overhead. It was a stark contrast from the beautiful verdant landscape of Atrios.

"She rebuilt _this_ world, too?" the Doctor asked. "Must have been a rushed job."

Elsiwith turned on the Doctor, with such hurt in her eyes that the Doctor actually felt a little guilty.

"The Olitzitz War left half our world dead — and the other half dying," said Elsiwith. "The Enemy didn't just suck the life out of our people. They sucked the life out of our soil, as well, so that nothing could grow. And they left behind monsters, who continued to ravage our world. After the war, we were preyed upon, starving, and abandoned. We had no hope. No future. Even the gods had died."

"Gods?" the Doctor asked.

"The Olitzitz," Elsiwith said, as if this were obvious.

"They called themselves gods?" The Doctor whistled. "And I thought _my_ lot was bad."

"Ergun and a few other war heroes returned, to help us battle the monsters who remained," said Elsiwith, "but not even _they_ could restore life back into the soil. We were as good as dead."

Ah.

Elsiwith's eyes shone. "But then, one day… on a world of dead gods and dead hope… an angel appeared."

The Doctor could see just how much hope that appearance had given people like Elsiwith. In a world where they'd all thought that Heaven, itself, had fallen, and no one was coming to rescue them…

One person who cared could mean everything.

"The Great Rebuilder created life, where there had been only death," said Elsiwith. "She restored the soil, destroyed the monsters, and planted forests and forests and forests! Flowers and trees and ferns, food and fruit and…"

"The Lady of Trees," the Doctor muttered, remembering one of the names that Astra had used to describe her.

"A Lady of Life!" said Elsiwith. "She grew us food, when we were hungry. She built us homes, when we had no shelter. She taught our children, when we had no teachers. And always — _always_ — she showed us love, kindness, and compassion. It was as if… she'd seen how much life and love and future the Enemy had stolen from this world… and gave that all back to us, a thousand times over."

The Doctor quite liked that.

It was beautifully poetic, and very just.

"Strange thing was… she never wanted any written record of what she'd done, in our history books, our art, or our religion," said Elsiwith. She reflected on it… still somewhat puzzled. "If we tried, she'd get rid of it. She even tore down a whole religion, once, because they dared to venerate her as a saint."

That was high-handed of her.

Although, the Doctor suspected, it probably was mostly so she could cover up where she'd invested all the money she stole. The Doctor had a feeling that if the Daleks or Sil or Garundel or any of the other people she'd stolen from figured out about Seo's hobby of rebuilding planets — they'd tear those planets apart, in revenge.

"This planet was so beautiful, twenty years ago," said Elsiwith. "So peaceful. She'd made it a paradise…"

"What went wrong?" the Doctor asked.

Elsiwith's happiness fell. "Ergun," she said. Gestured for the Doctor to follow her, and continued down the sewer. "The Great Rebuilder was once his friend, you know. She helped him. Went out of her way, to be kind to him. And he hated her for it. He accused her of trying to bribe him, of controlling his government, of wanting nothing but power."

"And he built up the Rodian military," the Doctor guessed.

"Every cent she gave us to build schools or improve our healthcare or rebuild our infrastructure," Elsiwith confirmed, "he diverted into the military. Every man or woman of age _has_ to go into the military. But lately… the age restrictions have loosened, and the recruitment has gone up."

Elsiwith doubled over, coughing.

"And now, an epidemic's broken out," the Doctor observed. "People are dying, all over, and Ergun isn't bothering to find a cure. Just pouring all his money into the military!"

Elsiwith nodded, trying to get her coughing under control.

"The Great Rebuilder gave him 3 billion dollars," said Elsiwith, through coughs, "to fight the Mahrizka virus and develop a cure. He used it to develop dark matter bombs, instead."

The Doctor could just imagine Seo's reaction to that.

"Well, I won't have it!" the Doctor said. "When this planet was dying, you may have needed a Great Rebuilder. But now… your planet is sick." He grinned. "So, it seems to me… you need a Doctor."


	27. Chapter 27

"Her eyes were the blackest thing I'd ever seen, in the universe," Ergun wrote. "Blacker than space. And when I looked into them… I saw only evil. Not one spark of compassion or goodness. Not even a glimpse of a soul."

He paused.

It wasn't right.

It still wasn't right!

He grabbed a blank page, and started again.

"I remember, I was with the army at Carver's Rock, at the end of the day," Ergun wrote. "The sun was setting over high, sloping mountaintops. And, next thing I knew… well… it all happened so fast. The battlefield exploded. Everyone started screaming. The Enemy had herded us there, her Spawn had surrounded us, and we were all dying — and no one could even flee. A stray bullet caught me, in the side. I fell into the mud. My hands were shaking so badly, I could barely hold my gun." He paused. Wet his lips, trying to stop his hands from shaking… even now, as he wrote. "And then… I looked up. And there she was."

He paused.

How could he write down everything he'd felt, back then?

How could he fit all those emotions and feelings and terror… into tiny little letters?

"I met her eyes," Ergun wrote. "And she met mine. Her eyes were filled with hate and rage. I tried to aim my gun, and she stomped down on my hands. And that's when I knew — I was going to die. I…"

A tortured scream echoed up from the prison cells, below.

Ergun gritted his teeth, and threw his pen at the desk. "I can't write with this kind of racket!" he shouted. "Does that woman really not have the courtesy to keep it down and let people work?!"

Brihana stood up. "You're just tired, Ergun," she told him. "You always get into one of your moods, when you work too hard. You should rest."

Ergun just looked away, and grumbled, "Perhaps."

Brihana came over to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. Her eyes fell on the framed photo she'd placed on his desk, this morning. "Do you remember that day, Ergun?" She picked up the photo, brought it forwards, so her husband could see. "Things were so much nicer, back then."

Ergun glanced at the picture.

Then looked away, again. "No," he snapped, stubbornly.

It was a photo from back when Liantor was just a little boy. A photo of their family, smiling and happy, enjoying a picnic — and Seo, alongside them.

"We thought of her as practically part of our family, back then," Brihana said. "We did everything together." A small smile touched her lips. "Do you remember when Liantor was five, and Seo built him his own tree house?"

Ergun shrugged her hands off his shoulders.

"And the sailing lessons she gave him, every summer," Brihana continued. "The way he'd run into the house, sunburnt, with Seo chasing after him, trying to get him to put on sunscreen."

"I said I don't remember!" Ergun snapped. He stood up, purposely turning his back on the photo. "Or, at least… it would be better if I didn't."

For a few seconds, they stood, in silence, remembering what had once been.

Another scream, from the prison cells, shattered the silence, between them.

Brihana put the picture down.

"She was never really our friend — she just wanted something from us," Ergun said. "She's always wanted power. Any time she did something nice for us, she'd marched into my office, the next day, to demand I take money out of the military and run the government her way!"

Brihana said nothing.

"Just because she once built Liantor a treehouse, that doesn't give her carte blanche to dictate our government," Ergun snapped. "And when she started bringing that miserable Time Lord along with her, everywhere she went… that pompous, arrogant, egotistical man… I just…!"

"I know," Brihana said.

"But that still wasn't enough for her!" Ergun said. "After all that… she rigged the elections! Tried to force me out of office!"

Brihana said nothing.

She remembered that day. The day Liantor had given them the evidence that the election was rigged, and Ergun had declared himself Grand Statesman for life.

Ergun had shot his political rival between the eyes — while Seo watched, restrained and helpless. The look in Seo's eyes, when he was done…

Brihana would never forget that look.

It still sent shudders down her spine.

"She may have saved our world, but she did it for her own selfish reasons," said Ergun. He heard another scream, from the cells, and closed his eyes. "I feel no pity for her."

Brihana sighed. "But the people of Rodia still love her, Ergun," she warned. "She's the angel who came to us, after Heaven had fallen and the gods had died. She breathed life back into a dead world. They'll never forget that."

"They should," said Ergun.

"Right now, the people fear you," Brihana warned her husband. "But one day… if you keep torturing her, like this… that fear will turn to hatred. They'll tear you apart, for what you've done to her." Her eyes lingered on the old photo, as she placed it back on Ergun's desk. "Perhaps… she's right. Perhaps we should put the Olitzitz War behind us, and forget about revenge."

"Never," said Ergun. He walked to his bookshelf full of notebooks and works in progress, his hand brushing across their bindings. "It's the gods' revenge, Brihana, not mine. How can I stop, when they are dead? How can I put aside my mission, when this one final act will wipe all evil from the universe?"

Brihana said nothing.

"If you want Seo's pain to end, find some other way to convince her to tell me what she knows," said Ergun. "Otherwise… I will use any method necessary, to get her to talk."

* * *

 

The freedom fighters looked just as worn down and hungry as Elsiwith. They were clearly trying to keep their spirits up, plotting to overthrow Ergun and restore democracy to their world, but some of them could barely stand.

The Doctor caught one, just before he fainted.

"Seo… always used to bring the poor people and civilians food," he muttered. "Liantor caught her at it, once. Ergun, in response, gave the food to the military, imposed tighter rations on us, and locked Seo up."

Brilliant.

Looked like Ergun was even funneling food to the military! Not just money and people.

"So, once Ergun put a stop to that method of food distribution, Seo gave the food to her Time Lord friend, so he could deliver it, in his TARDIS," Elsiwith said. "Narvin grumbled and complained at us, the whole time — but he did it. And it worked. His magic spaceship could appear, anywhere. We thought Ergun would never be able to put a stop to that."

"But he set up TARDIS patrols, around the city," said another freedom fighter. "They look for anything new, that's just appeared from nowhere. That was the end of Narvin's visits."

"So that's what I saw," the Doctor recalled. "A TARDIS patrol."

Elsiwith broke down, coughing.

"Have you brought us food?" the freedom fighters asked.

The Doctor grimaced. "No. Or… actually…" He reached into his pocket, and brought out a crumpled paper bag. "I do have Jelly Babies."

The freedom fighters leapt over and snatched them

Divided the candy out, amongst themselves, and savored every bite. The Doctor just wished he had more to give them.

"Then… the Great Rebuilder really _has_ sent you!" one of the freedom fighters cried, as he ate the last of his Jelly Babies. "She's come back, to help us! Just as we know she always will!"

The others stared at the Doctor like he was some kind of divine messenger, or something. Sent by the Great Rebuilder! Bearing food!

The Doctor cringed. "Well… sort of." He got up, pacing. "I was on Atrios, with her, actually. A man named Liantor turned up, invaded the planet, captured her, and brought her here. Tried to destroy Atrios, too, while he was at it."

"Liantor!" was the horrified whisper that fell off everyone's lips, across the room.

The Doctor looked around. "You know him?"

Everyone went very quiet.

They all shuffled, as they looked down at their feet.

"She doesn't deserve what happens to her," Elsiwith said. "The last angel, from the ruins of Heaven, treated like…!"

"Liantor is Ergun's son," another freedom fighter explained. "Whenever Ergun wants to torture Seo for information, he sends Liantor out to get her."

"So she's here, but in urgent need of rescue," the Doctor muttered. "Brilliant!" He sifted through the old newspapers the freedom fighters had collected. There were a surprising number, from thirty or forty years ago, that showed photos of Seo with Ergun and his family. "You said she was close to Ergun, once, Elsiwith. I can see what you mean."

It was strange, to see them so close, in those pictures… and know they'd become bitter enemies, in the future. It was just as surreal and creepy as when the Doctor stumbled across old Academy photos of himself and the Master.

"She gave him special treatment," said Elsiwith. "No one knows why. Ergun said it was a bribe. He said she wanted power."

"Rubbish!" the Doctor said.

But the shuffle from the other freedom fighters, and the way they wouldn't look at his face, told him — they disagreed.

"You think she was bribing him?" the Doctor asked, surprised.

"Not for bad reasons," Elsiwith insisted. "Yes, she wanted power, but only to help us! She wants to save our planet!"

"Of course she was bribing him," said another freedom fighter. "Why else would she have shown him such favor?"

"Why was she so eager to get him to like her?" said a third. "Why did she go out of her way for _him_ , specifically?"

The Doctor sighed.

"Seo remembered Ergun, didn't she?" the Doctor muttered, remembering what she'd told him. "From the Olitzitz War. She said she saw him, once, on the battlefield."

And now that the Doctor knew Seo had been on the wrong side of that conflict... well…

It was pretty obvious why Seo showed Ergun special treatment.

She wanted… hoped… Ergun would forgive her.

The Doctor dropped the newspapers, and turned back to the other freedom fighters. "Right, then! I think it's high time we broke into the palace and rescued Seo! Then we'll regroup, cure this epidemic of yours, overthrow the government, and… voila! All better."

The freedom fighters looked at one another.

They didn't look strong enough to defeat the well-armed military thugs that guarded the palace… but to save their Great Rebuilder… they were prepared to risk it.

They'd risk anything, for her.

"We'll come with you, Doctor," the freedom fighters told him, arming themselves. "We'll fight, to take back our government and rescue our Great Rebuilder! We'll…!"

The Doctor held up a hand.

"No guns," the Doctor said. He grinned at them, as he pulled the Gem of Braxiatel out of his pocket. "I have something much better."


	28. Chapter 28

Seo hung, limply, where she'd been bolted to the wall. Her throat felt raw, and the world kept spinning, around her.

Footsteps.

Seo didn't even bother to look up. "I've told you, Liantor," she said, her voice hoarse, "my answer is still no. You can't convince me…"

The person before her cleared her throat.

Seo glanced up. She was surprised to see Brihana there — and holding, of all things, a silver tray laid out with a wide assortment of fine and expensive foods.

"I… thought you might like something to eat," Brihana offered, looking a little embarrassed and a little nervous. She lay the tray of food down at Seo's feet. "Just… while you're our guest."

"Guest?" Seo glanced around herself. "Yeah, this is definitely the look I'd choose for a guest bedroom. Dank cell. Cold walls. Oh, and torture! You can't beat that. Five stars on TripAdvisor!"

Brihana's cheeks went red, and she couldn't meet Seo's eyes.

"Perhaps… I should leave," Brihana said, turning to go.

Seo tried to reach out — but couldn't move. "No, Brihana! Wait!"

Brihana stopped. Turned back.

"Please," Seo begged her. "Let me go. You know this is wrong."

Brihana cringed. "I can't. Not this time. I tried… but…" She realized that, chained to the wall, like that, Seo couldn't reach the food. Came over, to help her eat it. "Please, Seo, as my friend — just tell Ergun what he wants to know. Can't you see what you're doing, keeping this secret? Can't you see how you're destroying him?"

Seo didn't want to eat.

She turned her head away from the food.

"Your definition of friendship includes locking your friends in the basement and torturing them?" Seo asked. "You're all heart, Brihana." She gasped in a few deep breaths, trying to ignore the lingering pain. "I can't tell Ergun what he wants to know. I'm sorry."

"It's such a little thing," Brihana pleaded. "The Child is the devil, incarnate! She killed the gods! Murdered billions of people! There isn't even one spark of goodness, inside her. She _deserves_ to die."

Seo said nothing.

"Just let Ergun kill her," Brihana said. "Let him get this out of his system. Once he does… he'll stop investing so much in the military! We can all get back to saving the planet, together, again!"

Seo shook her head, sadly. "The Child is gone, Brihana. I'm sorry."

"We know she isn't dead," said Brihana.

"She isn't," Seo confirmed. "She's just… gone. Forever."

Brihana figured out that Seo wasn't touching the food. She sighed, and turned around. "I'll be back, if you get hungry. Just… please. Tell my husband what he wants to know."

Liantor offered his mother his arm, as support, as she left the prison cell. Brihana met his eyes, gratefully.

"Don't be too hard on her, Liantor," Brihana told him, as she left. "She was our friend, once. Surely, you remember that."

Liantor said nothing. He waited until his mother was far away, then shut the door to the cell, behind him. Trapping himself and Seo inside.

"You didn't tell her what I really asked you for," Liantor noted.

"So you wouldn't tell Ergun the real answer to his question," Seo said. "I'm not stupid, Liantor. I can pick up an implied threat."

Liantor said nothing.

"I still won't marry you," Seo said. "I'm not…"

"Daleks," Liantor replied.

Seo fell silent.

"Yes, I thought that might get your attention," said Liantor. "The Daleks contacted me. It seems they're very eager to get their hands on you — and they're very eager to see a certain 'Doctor' dead."

"And you listened to them… why?" Seo asked.

Liantor shrugged. "They've promised me an empire, if I do as they say."

Seo almost laughed out loud. "You can't trust Daleks," she said. "They'll go back on any promise they make. They always do."

"Not this time," said Liantor. He approached her. "I don't think you realize how much they want you."

"Why? What for?"

"Project Olitzitz," Liantor replied. "Or so they say."

Seo felt goosebumps prick her skin, up and down her arms. Project… Olitzitz? How were the Daleks involved with the Olitzitz?

"And what's Project Olitzitz?" Seo asked.

"They didn't tell me," said Liantor. "But the Dalek Supreme and the Dalek Emperor are both involved in it. So, if I hand you over — I don't think you'll make it out alive. Do you?"

Seo wasn't about to gamble on those odds, no.

And she shuddered to think what the Daleks would do to her — and everything she knew and loved — before they finally exterminated her.

"This 'marriage' of ours doesn't have to be anything onerous," Liantor said. "You love Narvin? I'll allow you to see him as much as you want. You enjoy resurrecting dying worlds? I'll give you the money you need, to do so. You want to fix Rodia's problems? The planet is yours."

Seo gave a coarse laugh. "Oh, yeah. You'll let me be with Narvin — so you can play voyeur. You'll let me rebuild planets — because you're planning to destroy them. And you'll give me Rodia, because you don't give a damn about it, yourself!"

Liantor's eyes narrowed.

He clapped his hands, and a group of soldiers wheeled in a big crate with a curtain draped across the top.

"Show her," Liantor said.

The soldiers whipped the curtain off the top, to reveal a blue 1960's police box, which they'd placed on wheels.

"We found your Time Lord and his TARDIS, the moment he landed," said Liantor. "He's in the next cell over. Marry me, or he dies — slowly and painfully. And I'll hand both you, and his corpse, over to the Daleks, when I'm done."

Seo said nothing.

She didn't believe, for one second, that Liantor had actually captured the Doctor. She thought it was a lot more likely that he was just pretending, to force her to agree.

"Fine." Liantor pivoted around, to face his men. "Kill him. If he comes back to life… keep killing him."

The soldiers saluted. Then turned to carry out his orders.

"It's a trick," Seo said. "He's not really in there."

Liantor's grin widened.

A horrified, terrified scream started up, from the next cell over. It was the echoing, piercing scream of a man being slowly and agonizingly killed.

"No!" Seo shouted, before she could stop herself.

"You can still save him," said Liantor. His eyes grew dark and dangerous. "Just marry me."

The words dried up on Seo's tongue.

Behind Liantor, unseen by all except Seo, the Tevin entered the cell — the same one who'd asked Seo to kill the Doctor. His eyes shone, as he heard the screams from the next cell over. He held a device, in his hands, to remove her from her bonds — her 'reward'. And, as he stepped towards her, he met her eyes, as if to say, "Good work. I knew you'd kill him, in the end."

Seo broke.

"Okay!" Seo shouted. "Yes! I do!"

At a command from Liantor, a soldier rushed off and stopped the execution in the next cell.

"You'll marry me?" Liantor asked.

"Is that really him, in there?" Seo demanded.

Liantor surged forwards, and grabbed her by her manacled wrist. He leaned in close, his whisper menacing. "That doesn't matter. Will you marry me?"

"On two conditions," Seo said. She met his eyes with her own. "First, the Doctor stays alive — and goes free. No matter what."

Liantor considered this. Then… nodded. "Fine. He doesn't matter, anyways. What else?"

Unseen to anyone else, the Tevin gave a disappointed frown. And vanished.

"The planets I rebuild are off-limits to you," Seo said. "They're my children, and I love them. I won't let you hurt or manipulate them. They've been through enough, already."

Liantor looked like he was about to restart her torture.

"You'll still get your empire," Seo broke in, before he could. "But you'll have to build it, yourself, using the vast army you've already formed on Rodia. I figured you'd like that better, anyways. More conquest. More glory."

Liantor considered.

Then grinned. And kissed her.

This time, Seo did not resist.


	29. Chapter 29

The freedom fighters were all shocked, when the Doctor first activated the Gem of Braxiatel in his jury-rigged gizmo. The guards around them stumbled, then just… dropped their guns.

Confused.

"That's… but you…!" Elsiwith said.

"Liantor was brainwashing them," the Doctor explained. "I'm just undoing the damage!" He grinned down at the device in his hands. "Who needs guns, when you could spread freedom?"

With the Doctor's device, he and the freedom fighters made their way into the palace, easily. Every cluster of guards he met, he de-brainwashed. They all let him through, then. No one made a move to stop them.

"If we can just hook it up to the palace power grid," the Doctor said, searching for the right kinds of power cables, "we can de-brainwash the entire planet, all at once! That'll give you your revolution!"

The others beamed.

They'd never dreamed they'd get this far!

"Aha!" the Doctor cried, running forwards and yanking open a fuse box. "Just what I need!"

He shut off the power, pulled out the Gem of Braxiatel, and got to work.

"See, my theory is, Liantor's using the Gem of Braxiatel to keep the army loyal to his father," said the Doctor, wiring it up, properly. "Ergun's torturing Seo, and the gem makes people hate her and want to hurt her. The army's happy to serve Ergun — simply because he's hurting her."

Elsiwith stared at the Doctor, horrified.

"But… moment I send out my modified Gem of Braxiatel psychic signal…" The Doctor, in triumph, threw on the power and activated his device.

A psychic wave shuddered across the planet.

And suddenly, everyone in the army — across all Rodia — frowned, putting their hand to their head, as if a fog had just lifted from their minds.

"Thank you, Time Lord," came a voice directly behind the Doctor. "I was hoping you'd do that."

The Doctor and the freedom fighters all spun around, to find themselves surrounded, on all sides, by armed soldiers — the same ones the Doctor had de-brainwashed, to get in there.

Leading the soldiers was Liantor, energy rifle in hand.

"They're not under your control, anymore, Liantor," Elsiwith snapped, grinning. To the soldiers, she added, "This is a revolution! We fight for the Great Rebuilder! We fight to take our world back from Ergun!"

The soldiers didn't lower their guns.

"So are we," they told Elsiwith.

"Yes, they are," Liantor said, addressing the freedom fighters. "Your demands have been met, and your revolution is at hand. With your help, I will overthrow my father, this very day. And, when I am Grand Statesman, I will share power with my future wife — whom you know as 'Seosyrae, the Great Rebuilder'."

The Doctor stared at him. "Future what?!"

Problem was, the moment Liantor mentioned Seo's name, the freedom fighters immediately went over to the side of the soldiers.

"That's better," Liantor said, smiling. He turned back to the Doctor, leveling an energy pistol at him. "Give me the device, Time Lord. I may have promised Seo I wouldn't kill you… but I can still severely injure you."

The Doctor stared at all the people, around him. They looked like they were prepared to rip him apart, if he didn't do what Liantor said.

"Have you all gone mad? Or have I?" the Doctor asked — as he, reluctantly, handed the Gem of Braxiatel and its amplification device over to Liantor. "I thought you wanted to restore democracy!"

"So naïve and idealistic, Time Lord!" said Liantor, taking the device. "Don't you see? This was never about democracy. It was about _her_. They want her to rule them, lead them, and guide them. They'd even run through fire, if she asked them to."

Liantor flicked the Gem of Braxiatel out of the device. Dropped the device to the ground, stamping on it until it was destroyed.

The Doctor sighed, feeling extremely stupid for not seeing this whole thing coming. "You played me, didn't you, Liantor?" he asked. "That's why you left behind a bomb, on Atrios, with just the right parts to let me create my little de-brainwashing gizmo. You _wanted_ me to lift your brainwashing, across the planet Rodia, just in time for you to marry Seo and seize power from your father."

Liantor beamed.

"Ergun's reign was filled with cruelty, disease, and disaster," Liantor announced. "But today, my future wife and I will take his place! Our hand will be strong, but just. Our reign will be brutal, but fair. Our policies will bring life back to this planet!"

"Oh, will they?" the Doctor asked, bemused. "What did Elsiwith say? This planet was beautiful and peaceful, until about 20 years ago. Looking at you, I'd say 20 years ago was just about when you hit age 18, and your father could start putting _you_ to work, inside his government."

"Quiet, Doctor," Liantor warned, readying his gun.

"Struck a nerve, have I?" The Doctor grinned. "Whose idea was it, really, to invade Atrios? Ergun's… or _yours_ , Liantor?" His voice dropped. "Did Ergun even know you invaded, at all?"

"It's the right of the strong to become conquerors," said Liantor. "I have shown my strength, on Atrios. And I will show it, again, on other worlds. I will conquer, destroy, and rule — while my wife rebuilds and inspires. Together, we will forge an empire that stretches across the stars."

"I can just imagine what she has to say about that," the Doctor muttered.

He looked around at the others, but they didn't seem to care about anything the Doctor had just said about Liantor. Either they didn't believe the Doctor (fair enough, since he was the new guy), or they didn't care who else was in charge, so long as Seo got to rule.

That was bad.

The Doctor turned back to Liantor, changing tactics. He beamed, happily. "So… you're getting married. A wedding! I love weddings. Marvelous! When is it? I assume I'm invited. Probably with a gun at my head, just to make sure she says 'I do'."

Liantor glared at the Doctor.

Then, to the soldiers nearby, he commanded, "Find my father and mother. Lock them in the dungeon, and tear down any statues or art that depict them. I'll make sure their executions are televised, live, this evening."

The soldiers — and the freedom fighters — saluted Liantor, then marched off, to do what he said.

"You've got the people of Rodia eating out of the palm of your hand," the Doctor muttered. "Clever of you, forcing Seo to marry you. It seems they really will do anything for her." He swept his eyes across the room. "I notice she's not actually here, at the moment."

"I'm letting her come to terms with the idea of this marriage," Liantor said. "She's in her room."

"Her room? Or a prison cell?"

"Between you and me — she won't be leaving the prisons, much, once we're married," Liantor said. "I'm not going to chance her escaping and running out on me." He lowered his gun. "Now, listen carefully, Time Lord. I know your people want intelligence on the Daleks. I have that intelligence — and I'm willing to deal."

Liantor tossed the Gem of Braxiatel back to the Doctor.

He caught it.

"The Daleks contacted me," Liantor said. "It's pretty clear they want to destroy your people, and, the more I listened to them, the more certain I was that Seo's past is the key to uncovering how they'll do so. 'Project Olitzitz' will shortly be in full operation, they said."

The Doctor stared at the Gem, in his hand.

He could see the hint of something rippling, inside it. The hint of Seo's past.

"The gemstone's a freebie," said Liantor. "But I want Time Lord weapons, Doctor. The good stuff. The stuff you've been creating for the Time War. Tell Narvin that, if he ever wants to see that intelligence — or his lover — again, he'll hand me the weapons by midnight, tomorrow."

The Doctor tucked the Gem of Braxiatel into his pocket. "Oh?"

"And if he thinks he can use one of his Time Lord tricks, to rescue her," Liantor continued, "I'll call in the Daleks. I'm sure they'll be more than happy to take a few pot-shots at some Time Lords, while they're here to find Seo."

"Oh," the Doctor said. Frowned. "I see." He gestured out a nearby window, at a hospital, in the distance. "I should have guessed. The Daleks went back in time and gave you the virus that's currently wiping out your planet, didn't they?"

"And when Narvin brings the weapons, I'll be happy to give him a sample of the disease — and the cure," said Liantor. "But not until I get the weapons, Doctor."

"Yes, I thought you had the cure," the Doctor muttered. "Reserved for your military, no doubt?"

Liantor shrugged.

"That's why your father's been pushing people of all ages into the military," the Doctor said. "Because he noticed that, for some reason, everyone in the military wound up cured!"

"He thinks they're being cured due to 'proper hygiene and nutrition'," Liantor said, with a laugh. "The fool."

"Oh, yes, you've been very clever, Liantor," the Doctor said, his voice dark and a little threatening. "Convincing your father to inflate his military, manipulating him to overthrow the democratic system — and driving a wedge between him and Seo, so that the people would _want_ to overthrow him. You'll gain the people's love and adoration, for saving her from torture — even though _you_ were her torturer. Am I right?"

Liantor scowled. "Just get me the weapons, Time Lord."

"What?" The Doctor looked almost hurt. "You mean I don't get to go to the wedding? Not even with a gun to my head?"

"Either she marries me, or I'll turn her over to the Daleks," Liantor replied. He shrugged. "Trust me. She'll cooperate."

The Doctor shook his head, with a sigh. "Ah, well." He spun on his heels. "Save some cake!"

Then ran off.

He wasn't sure precisely where he was running, but he figured… as long as he went downwards…

The Doctor paused, as he heard an old man's voice, in the distance, and a lot of marching and shouting. No, not just in the distance. It was coming closer.

The Doctor hid behind an ornamental sculpture, as the group turned a corner and came into sight.

"…my son," the old man said. He looked like he was having trouble walking, on his own — and the soldiers frogmarching him forwards had to keep catching him, every time he stumbled. "He can't do this!"

"Move," the soldiers commanded.

"This must be some kind of mistake!" said the old woman beside the old man — who kept trying to help her husband, even though the soldiers kept pulling the two apart.

"Your crimes against Rodia have been many," said the soldiers. "Your actions have destroyed a world that was so nearly saved. You will pay for what you've done, Ergun."

The Doctor snuck out from his hiding spot, as they passed.

Interesting.

Better, still — they were heading down, towards the dungeons. And that was precisely where he wanted to go.

"This is Seo's work, isn't it?" Ergun said, as he kept getting frogmarched to the dungeons. "She's escaped, gone behind my back, seduced my son, and started this coup! If I get my hands on her…!"

"You have harmed the Great Rebuilder enough, Ergun," Elsiwith interrupted. She was now holding a gun. "She is our ruler, now, just as much as Grand Statesman Liantor. She'll finally be free from your tortures and cruelty."

Which was a lovely fairy story, but… the Doctor suspected… far from the truth.

"Let me speak to her," the old woman said. "Please! I can convince her that…"

That was when they entered the dungeons.

The Doctor darted for cover, as the soldiers quickly shoved the old man and old woman into a cell, and locked them inside. The Doctor held his breath, as the soldiers turned around.

They didn't see him, in his hiding spot.

All but one of the soldiers marched out of the room, ready to find Liantor and follow his next commands.

The Doctor waited until the one remaining soldier had his back to him, then jumped out of his hiding spot.

"Attention!" the Doctor snapped.

The soldier spun around, caught off guard. Then, hastily, saluted.

"The Great Rebuilder requires you in the banquet hall, immediately!" the Doctor commanded. "There's a hostage situation. Her life is in danger. So get there on the double, soldier! You hear?"

"Yes, sir!" the soldier said, scurrying to follow the order. "Right away, sir!"

The Doctor grinned, as the soldier left the dungeons.

"Easy as pie," the Doctor said, slipping his sonic screwdriver out of his pocket. He twirled it in his fingers, as he made his way over to the cell where they locked up Ergun. "Hang on, ex-Grand-Statesman. Soon have you out of there!"

He buzzed his sonic at the cell lock.

And, in a few seconds, the lock clicked and the door swung open.

An old man and an old woman, now seated on the floor of the cell, stared up at the Doctor, as he entered.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," the Doctor introduced, reaching down and helping the old man to his feet. "And you must be Grand Statesman Ergun. Can't say it's a pleasure."

Ergun squinted at the Doctor. "You're the… who?" He turned to the old woman, who was already on her feet. "Brihana, who is this man, exactly? A physician?"

"I think… he's here to rescue us," Brihana said.

The Doctor gestured at the open door. "Quite right! Rescue you! Stop Liantor! Rescue my friend! You haven't seen her, by the way? Blond, pale skin, brown eyes, about so high, recently got forced into marrying a tyrant?"

From another cell, nearby, the Doctor heard a muffled yell.

"Never mind!" the Doctor said, running out of the cell, and over to the one nearby. He buzzed the lock with his sonic screwdriver…

And the door swung open.

The Doctor shook his head, with a sigh, as he entered the cell and saw Seo chained to the wall. "Well, well, the blushing bride, herself! Can't say I'm thrilled with your choice of husband."

"You mean because he's a dictator? A tyrant? Or a creep?" Seo struggled, in her bonds. "No, seriously — you've got no idea how relieved I am that you showed up, Doctor. I was about to dislocate my thumb, to break out of these things."

Ergun stared at her. Not quite sure he believed what he was seeing.

"But… I thought you were up… with…" Ergun started, gesturing upstairs.

"Did you miss the part where I said he _forced_ her to marry him?" The Doctor started buzzing at her bonds with his sonic. "I think this should make it obvious that Seo didn't actually get much say in the matter."

The Doctor shook out the sonic. Tried to open her restraints, with no success. Then tried altering the settings.

Buzzed, again.

"It's like you've been welded in," the Doctor said, as the sonic still failed to unlock the manacles. "Liantor must have really not wanted to take any chances, with you."

"Actually, the restraints weren't down to him," Seo admitted. Her eyes fell on Ergun. "Look. Ergun. I'm sorry about Liantor. But…"

"Oh, you two don't know the half of what Liantor's done," the Doctor said, trying another setting on the sonic. "He's been purposely spreading the Mahrizka virus through the populace, and only giving the cure to the military, to push people into it. He's been using alien artifacts to brainwash people. He's been landing military troops on planets like Atrios — claiming he was doing so in his father's name…"

"He's been what?!" Ergun cried.

"…when, of course, his father knew nothing about it," the Doctor continued. "Oh, and, of course, he's been purposely driving a wedge between you two, Seo and Ergun, to make sure he could seize power at just the right time, and become the people's hero."

Seo and Ergun stared at one another.

Then at the Doctor.

"What did Liantor tell you, Ergun, to make you overthrow the will of the electorate?" the Doctor asked. "That Seo had rigged the election?"

"He… he… got a confession, out of her!" Ergun insisted.

"Confession?!" Seo shook her head. "What are you talking about? Until you shot your opponent, Ergun, I didn't even know why I'd been arrested. Trust me — no one ever asked me for a confession. To anything."

"But did you rig the election?" the Doctor asked.

"No, of course not!" Seo said. "How could I? Polling places are all operated locally and independently. Do you know how impossible it is to rig something like that?"

"There, see? Liantor made it all up," the Doctor concluded. "Everything! Which means… we're all friends, again!"

The room went silent.

But the tension was still thick, between Seo and Ergun. Like there was something still left unresolved, between them.

"Friends?" the Doctor prompted. "No? Nothing?"

"That wasn't exactly how this all started, Doctor," said Seo, quietly. She kept her eyes fixed on Ergun. "Ergun saw the Olitzitz die. He knows the person who killed them is still alive. He's sworn revenge."

The Doctor hesitated. Looked between Ergun and Seo. "I… see."

"My life will never be complete until I soak the soil in her blood," Ergun said. "The screams of her death will be justice to my ears. And once I've destroyed her, the universe will be purged of all its evil. Peace will come. And since the two wars are linked, her death will mean the Time War will never occur."

The Doctor shot a confused look at Seo.

"Now, do you understand why I don't tell the Pacifists the truth?" Seo asked the Doctor.

"This villain didn't _just_ destroy the Olitzitz!" Ergun continued, his voice growing angrier and angrier, with every word. "She drained the life out of the Rodian soil, so nothing could grow. She murdered half the population. She left monsters to ravage the surface and pick off survivors."

"Yes, she and her kind did a lot of…" the Doctor began.

"Not her kind," Ergun said. "Her. She — and she, alone — doomed this world."

The Doctor's sonic screwdriver finally popped open one of Seo's manacles.

The Doctor just sighed. "Oh, Seo, Seo, Seo…" he muttered, too low for Ergun to hear. "Returning to the scene of the crime?"

"What am I supposed to do?" Seo whispered back to him. "Run away, pretend my past never happened, and leave any survivors to die?"

The Doctor wasn't sure what to say to this.

"Besides, not _all_ of the planets I rebuild are destroyed by… you know…" Seo whispered. "It's not like I kept a map, back then, or anything. If I see a planet that's nearly dead, I rebuild it! No matter _who_ destroyed it."

The Doctor nodded.

"Ergun," the Doctor said, louder, buzzing his sonic at another of Seo's manacles, "your son has done some terrible things. Even you have to admit that."

Ergun did.

"Someone might even swear revenge on him," the Doctor continued. Seo's other manacle popped open, and the Doctor started on her leg cuffs. "But imagine if your son realized the error of his ways. Imagine if he repented, and devoted the rest of his life to helping others. Would it still be right, in that case, to take revenge?"

Ergun shook his head. "Your words mean nothing. The Child cannot change. She is pure evil."

"But…"

"The Time Lords have a saying, I believe — 'a Dalek cannot change its bumps'," Ergun continued. "They claim the Daleks will always be evil, no matter what. And their evil is born from that one lingering speck of darkness — the essence of all evil, created at the beginning of time: the Child who massacred the Olitzitz. Destroy the Child, and the Daleks will become forces for good."

"Actually, I was there, when the Daleks were created," the Doctor countered. "And your Olitzitz-killing vampire was nowhere to be found. Davros was quite evil enough, on his own."

He popped open Seo's leg cuffs, and started on the iron band around her middle.

"You know nothing, Doctor," Ergun insisted. He shook his head. "The only way to prevent the Time War is to destroy the Child. She is the link between the Olitzitz War… and Gallifrey's."

The Doctor thought about what Liantor had said — Project Olitzitz.

And wondered if, maybe, Ergun was onto something.

With a few more buzzes of the sonic screwdriver, the Doctor finished freeing Seo from her restraints, and helped her to step out of them.

"Before we get into all that," the Doctor said, "I think it's time we stopped Liantor, cured this virus, and got everything sorted out on this planet. Don't you?"


	30. Chapter 30

Liantor couldn't stop smiling, as he watched all paintings, tapestries, portraits, and statues of Ergun get torn down, ripped apart, and shattered. Around him, he heard the shouts of people cheering him on, welcoming his new regime.

Now, all he had to do was make his broadcast.

Then, the regime change would be complete. He could execute his parents and move on to greater plans.

He stepped into the room where a team was already busy setting up cameras and microphones. A makeup person ran over, and began to put foundation on his face and prepare him for the broadcast.

"Everyone is ready when you are, Grand Statesman Liantor," said the broadcast supervisor.

Liantor brushed away the makeup person, and stepped in front of the cameras. This was his big day. His moment.

He'd make the most of it.

The cameraman counted him down, then pointed at him, when he was live. Liantor put on his most military and self-righteous face.

"Citizens of Rodia," he announced, "for too long, Ergun has ignored your plight and taken your money, simply so he could satisfy his own need for vengeance. But today, I've said no more! In the company of my future wife, Seosyrae, the Great Rebuilder, I have overthrown my father's tyrannical rule, so I can undo the great evils he has…"

That was when Liantor's transmission, across the globe, went fuzzy.

His voice turned to static.

And, when the image cleared, and came into focus, again, it was not Liantor's voice, but Seo's, that came through.

"Is it on, Doctor?" Seo said. "Are we live?"

* * *

In another room, elsewhere in the palace, the Doctor and Seo had been working tirelessly to stage their own broadcast — one that could hijack Liantor's transmission, and replace his message with Seo's own.

"No, no, not like that!" the Doctor said, buzzing his sonic screwdriver at something Seo had in her hand. "Reverse the polarity of the neutron flow!"

"First of all — that doesn't actually mean anything," Seo snapped, glancing at him over her shoulder. "And second — I'm a temporal scientist with an in-depth understanding of shock physics. I'm not an expert at rigging up antiquated televisual broadcasts!"

"I suppose, in your time period, you use the vortex itself as a kind of network, to transmit all your videos," the Doctor grumbled.

He — and many others, like him — had grown increasingly agitated at the human empire of Seo's time, which kept clogging up the vortex with stupid cat videos and funny email forwards and annoying pop-up ads.

Seo shrugged. "Easier to figure out, than all this."

The Doctor finished what he was doing. "Well, lucky for you — I'm a genius. And I _am_ an expert at jury-rigging antiquated televisual broadcast systems." He scurried over, pointed the camera at her. "There we go. It's working! Perfect!"

"Is it on, Doctor?" Seo asked. "Are we live?"

The Doctor made a gesture at her to go on and do the broadcast, already.

Seo took a deep breath. "People of Rodia," she said. "Liantor has lied to you and cheated you. So I'm here, speaking to you, in the hopes that you'll overthrow him and reverse what he's done. Everything you've blamed on Grand Statesman Ergun was done by Liantor, without the Grand Statesman's approval or even his knowledge. Liantor has kidnapped me, tortured me, and, today, even forced me to agree to marry him — all for his own personal gain. And, by spreading the Mahrizka virus, he has doomed many, on this planet, to a lingering, painful death."

Then, she explained it all.

In detail.

* * *

Liantor knew, the moment he saw her.

She'd tell them everything.

"Get her off the TV!" Liantor shouted, at his own broadcast team. "Get my broadcast back on!"

But when they turned back to him, there was a very clear change in their demeanor.

"Is it true?" one of the crowd asked, growing hatred on his face. "Did you torture the Great Rebuilder, and force her to agree to marry you?"

"Did you spread a virus through our population and purposely withhold the cure?" asked another.

"Did you carry out conquests and begin wars without your father's approval, simply to further your own ambition?!" a third demanded.

Liantor knew this wasn't going to end well.

He spun around, and ran.

The crowd chased him, but he knew this palace better than they did. He slammed a hidden emergency button on one of the walls, and a steel bulkhead banged closed, behind him, separating him from his pursuers.

But he didn't stop running.

He cocked his gun, as he made his way to the room that he'd recognized, from Seo's broadcast. It was time to end this.


	31. Chapter 31

Seo's broadcast ended the moment Liantor banged open the door, and shot out the camera.

Then he turned the gun on Seo.

"You!" Liantor accused.

"Liantor, put the gun down," the Doctor said. "You've lost."

As if to confirm this, Ergun — who'd been lingering, nearby — revealed his own revolver. He pressed it against Liantor's temple.

"Don't force my hand, son," Ergun warned. "Stop this, now, and we can work something out."

Liantor took a long, deep breath. Then, frustrated but forced to accept the truth of the situation, he handed his gun to the Doctor.

The Doctor swiftly disarmed it, then took it apart with his sonic screwdriver.

"You have done terrible things, my son," Ergun said. "I don't know how you can atone for your crimes. But I know you must."

Liantor gave a bitter laugh. "But there are some crimes you can never really atone for," he said, his eyes falling on Seo. "Isn't that right?"

Seo said nothing.

"I tortured Seo because _you_ commanded me to, Father," Liantor told Ergun. "And I know why you did. A part of you never trusted her, since the day you met her. No, more than that — part of you hated her, because part of you _knew_ the truth. That's why you wanted to hurt her, every time you thought about your revenge!"

"Liantor, please," Seo begged, stepping forwards.

But it was already too late. Liantor had grabbed a tape player out of his pocket, and was already playing the recording he'd made, long ago, back when he'd first learned her secret.

"Ergun was so young," Seo said, on the tape. Her voice was faint, fatigued, and distracted — the confession of someone tortured far too long. "So scared. He'd been shot in the side, had fallen into the mud, hands shaking. When I met his eyes, I knew — he thought he was going to die. It was written all over his face." She gasped, in pain. "He was wearing a watch. A red watch, with silver buttons and green hands. It shattered, when I stomped my foot down on his hand."

Ergun's eyes went wide.

He'd never told anyone about the smashed watch. Not in any of his memoirs or anecdotes or scribblings.

But now, he remembered, Seo had gotten him a replacement, shortly after he met her… and she'd never explained how she knew he'd lost it.

"Look at her, Father!" Liantor said, pointing at her. "Don't you remember her, from the war? Because she certainly remembers you!"

Ergun looked into Seo's eyes.

And, for the first time, he thought he recognized… something… in those brown depths…

The voice on the tape recorder continued. "I remember," Seo whispered, on the tape. "The scared little soldier, wounded in battle. I never forgot that face. Those terrified eyes. When I saw him, again… I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe… it was the same…"

Liantor shut off the recording.

Ergun stared at Seo.

"You want to find the person who murdered the Olitzitz and nearly destroyed Rodia? The person you saw, on that battlefield, who nearly killed you?" Liantor gestured at Seo. "She's standing right in front of you, Father. She always has been."

Ergun could see it.

For the first time… he could see past the surgery and the hair color and her age and everything else she'd done to disguise herself. He could see the same eyes, the lips, the same person. He could see… this _was_ the Child.

An angry crowd burst through the door, intent on tearing Liantor to pieces.

Ergun silenced them with a single gesture.

"Arrest him," Ergun said, his voice filled with constrained fury. "Leave us alone."

The crowd looked at Seo, not sure whether to trust Ergun, now that they'd learned they'd been wrong to hate him.

"Do what he says," Seo confirmed.

They carried out Ergun's orders without question — and left the room, with Liantor at gunpoint. Only the Doctor, Ergun, Brihana, and Seo remained.

"Ergun, don't listen to…" Seo started.

But Ergun wasn't interested in anything she had to say.

With a shout of rage, Ergun lunged at Seo, cocking his revolver.

"You murderer!" Ergun shouted. "You witch!"

Brihana tried to step forwards and hold back her husband. "Ergun, please…!"

Ergun shrugged her off.

"Kneel," he commanded Seo, gesturing at the floor in front of him, with his gun. "Hands behind your head. Now!"

"Ergun, your wife's right," the Doctor said, as gently as he could. "This won't help…"

"I said _kneel_!" Ergun screamed, revolver pointed at Seo.

Seo had the feeling that, if she didn't do what he said, he'd kill her, anyways.

She placed her hands behind her head, and knelt down, in front of Ergun. Took a long, deep breath.

"Ergun—" Seo began.

"Why?" Ergun demanded of her. His hands were shaking. His eyes were filled with tears. "Why?!"

Seo faltered. "I…"

"Why did you do it?!" Ergun demanded of her. "Why did you destroy my home? Why did you contaminate the soil, so that nothing could grow? Why did you murder our gods?!"

She hesitated.

Not sure how to answer.

"Oh, what does it matter?" Ergun muttered.

And made to pull the trigger.

Brihana leapt at him, yanking his arm out of the way — so the shot went wide. Ergun spun on Brihana, his hand trembling in rage, gun now pointed right at her.

"You don't really want to do this," the Doctor said, edging closer to him so he could try to get the gun off him. "This isn't the answer."

Ergun took a deep breath. "You're right." He shifted his aim back to Seo — who'd gotten to her feet, and had been trying to sneak up and tackle him. She froze. "There's only one person I need to kill, in this room. And, in vengeance for the gods and the worlds you destroyed — I _will_ spill your blood."

"Ergun, think about this," the Doctor said. "She didn't _have_ to come back. She could have left Rodia to die! But she wanted to reverse what she'd done. She wanted to make amends."

"You weren't there, Doctor!" Ergun shouted. "You don't know what it was like, watching her dismember friends and families for no reason! You didn't see how she eviscerated infants in orphanages, or how she laughed as she killed my parents, or how she… she…!"

He gave a little sob, shuddering at the memory of what she'd done.

Seo took a small step forwards, reaching out a hand to comfort him.

Ergun shot over her shoulder — barely missing her.

"Back on your knees!" Ergun screamed. "Now!"

Seo did what she was told.

"I want to look into your eyes as you die," Ergun said. "I want to watch you fear for your life, the way I once feared for mine! And I want to laugh — just as you laughed — when the life ebbs from your body. The last shot of the Olitzitz War is mine, and I want to enjoy it!"

"This isn't going to help," the Doctor said. "She isn't the same person she was. Killing her won't feel like revenge, it'll feel like murder."

"He's right," Seo said. "Ergun, please. Listen to me! The Child is gone. You're not killing _her_ ; you're killing _me_!"

"And who are you?" Ergun demanded. "We thought you were an angel, flying in from Heaven to help us, after the gods had died and hope had gone. But it was all a trick. A lie! You're not an angel. You don't deserve the love and adoration of the people. You deserve pain, agony, torment and…!"

"Torture?" the Doctor asked. He gestured at Seo. "You've already tortured her, plenty. You've heard her scream. Seen her fear. Your son nearly blew up Atrios, just to make her suffer. Does that make you feel _good_?"

Ergun hesitated.

"You want to kill a devil," the Doctor continued. "But look at her, now. Look at how much time, money, love, and dedication she's shown to your world! Is _this_ your 'devil'?"

"Nothing could ever be enough to make up for what she did," Ergun said, his eyes never leaving Seo. "Her crimes can never be forgiven, not by any…!"

"You're right," Seo said. "They can't."

Ergun, for a moment, couldn't speak.

His finger tensed around the trigger of his revolver.

"You hate me," Seo said, quickly, her eyes fixed on his trigger finger. "I get that. I get why you want to torture me. I get why you want to tear me apart for what I've done. But there are other planets just like Rodia, with other people just like you — and they're in danger because of things I did when I was young. I have to find them. I have to save them. And if you kill me, now, I can't ever do that. Those planets will die."

Ergun didn't back down.

But he didn't shoot.

"The Olitzitz told you that we were the essence of all evil in the universe," said Seo. "A great evil, born at the dawn of time, to fight the Olitzitz gods. But it wasn't true. Look at me, Ergun. I'm not the essence of evil!"

"It _is_ true," Ergun retorted. "The light from the Big Bang evolved, over billions of years, into the Olitzitz gods, while the darkness evolved…!"

"The war lasted two years and eighty nine days," Seo cut in.

Ergun stared.

"Not 14 billion years," Seo said. "Not even millions of years. Not enough time to evolve. Just two years and eighty nine days. That was all."

"But…"

"A war across time always feels like a war across eternity," said Seo. "But it wasn't. The Olitzitz were never gods, and my side wasn't the essence of evil. All of that was a lie. We were just soldiers. Both sides. The Olitzitz. Me. You. Each of us had our orders. I…"

Seo paused. Grimaced.

"I was ordered to destroy Rodia," Seo confessed. "I was supposed to kill you — and everyone else. But I didn't. I couldn't. I failed. My sire punished me for that… and by the time he was done, I began to wish I'd died on Rodia, instead. That would have been easier."

The Doctor stared at her.

"Don't look at me like that," Seo told the Doctor. "It wasn't the first time my sire hurt me, and it wouldn't be the last. Whenever I failed him, I knew what was coming. It… scared me. More than I can say."

Ergun said nothing.

"That's why I remembered you, Ergun," Seo said, looking at him, again. "That's why I didn't… couldn't… kill you. I looked into your eyes — a scared little soldier, too young for the war — and realized… I might as well be looking into mine. You were my mirror. And I realized… I couldn't do it. I ran."

Ergun swallowed, hard.

"I'm sorry, Ergun," Seo said. "So sorry. For all of it. And I know I've been telling you that, since the day I found you, again, on Rodia — but it's still not enough. And it never will be."

Ergun remembered… all those times when, out of the blue, she'd told him she was so sorry… and he could never figure out why she said it…

"I did terrible things, when I was young," Seo said. "I've come to realize just how bad they were, as I grew up. And I am mortified. It would have been so much easier to just run and hide from what I'd done, and pretend none of it had happened. But I couldn't. I can't. I drained life and time and peace away from the universe… and now, I need to give it back. Please — give me that chance. Let me give back what I took away."

Ergun's mouth went dry.

A tear dripped down his cheek.

"Ergun," Brihana said, softly, approaching him, "let her go. Please. This isn't you."

Ergun still said nothing.

"Look into her eyes," Brihana said, "and ask yourself… can you pull that trigger? Can you look into the eyes of someone you once considered your dearest friend… and kill her?"

Ergun stared into Seo's eyes.

The same eyes he'd once looked into, when he was young and wounded on a battlefield. Now, an old man, here he was, again — with their roles reversed. He was the one threatening, while she…

She…

He remembered so many days she'd worked alongside him, building houses or killing monsters or tilling fields. He remembered how she'd give her food ration away, every day, for a full week, when his new wife, Brihana, had gotten sick and nearly died, while pregnant with Liantor. He remembered the way she'd always been there for him — through the famine, the nightmares, the days when the dead dust blew into tornadoes around them and buried people alive.

She'd suffered for this world.

She'd poured her heart and soul into rebuilding it.

And what had he done to her, in return? Locked her up, tortured her, allowed his own son to nearly…

And now, here he was.

Ready to kill her.

Just as, once upon a time, she'd been ready to kill him.

Ergun squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't stop the tears from streaming down his cheeks.

He lowered the gun.

"Get out," Ergun whispered, his voice low and biting.

Seo hesitated, trying to decide if he'd shoot her the moment she turned her back… or let her go.

"I said, _get out!_ " Ergun shouted, shoving her away so she sprawled onto the floor. "Get out of my sight and off of my planet! _Now_!"

The Doctor knew this was her only chance.

He rushed forwards. Helped her to her feet.

"And don't you _ever_ dare come back," Ergun warned. "Because, next time… no matter how far into the future you go… you won't leave this planet alive."

Seo glanced over her shoulder. Stared at him, one last time, and whispered one last, "I'm sorry," before the Doctor bustled her out of the room.

Ergun never looked at her.

He couldn't.

Ergun just turned the other way, and left via the back door to the room. Brihana trailed after him, as he marched back to his study. His eyes fell on the volumes after volumes of notebooks and papers, upon which he'd scrawled his memoirs.

"Ergun…" Brihana began.

A trumpeting roar filled the palace, as, down in the basements, below, the Doctor's TARDIS departed.

Ergun, in his study, gave his own roar, as he yanked the bookcase off the wall, and crashed it onto the floor.

Papers and notebooks went flying.

"Burn them," Ergun told Brihana. "Lies. Trash! Useless!"

He went back to his writing desk, and took out a new notebook. Carefully, on the first page, he began writing his real memoirs — the chronicles of his life that, he hoped, would finally make everything make sense.

"This is the story," Ergun wrote, "of how Seosyrae killed the gods and destroyed the world."

* * *

Back in the TARDIS, Seo had gone very quiet.

The Doctor, by the central console, didn't even need to look at her to know how she was feeling.

"You can't ever go back," the Doctor cautioned her. "Ergun will find a way to make sure Rodia knows all about you, so they can hunt you down, if you land on their planet, again. If you're lucky, he won't tell the Pacifists."

Seo just stared at the central console, going up and down, up and down.

The light reflected in her eyes and in her face.

"I'll be back," Seo said. "Someday. When they really need me."

The Doctor sighed. "They don't want you there. They'll kill you, if you try to land."

"But Rodia's one of my children," Seo told him. She shrugged. "And that's the thing about children. Even when they want to kill you, you still love them, unconditionally. You can't help it."

The Doctor looked up at her.

He was just starting to realize… this wasn't the first time this had happened to her. And it probably wouldn't be the last.

"You're a brave woman," the Doctor told her.

Seo met his eyes, with hers. "Brave? No. I'm not brave. I just do what I have to. That's all."


	32. Chapter 32

A half hour later, the Doctor was under the TARDIS central console, hooking the Gem of Braxiatel up to the TARDIS, and Seo was sitting beside him, cross-legged, handing him tools out of a completely disorganized toolbox.

"Handing people tools and passing people test tubes," Seo sighed. "It's like going through grad school, all over again."

"Carthoelectric agitator," the Doctor called out, hand extended.

Seo found the tool, and shoved it into the Doctor's hand.

He got back to work.

"Explain to me, again, why we're doing this?" Seo asked him. "The Gem of Braxiatel is a trap, meant to screw with people's minds and make them hate me."

"Yes, but it's more than that!" the Doctor said, squinting at the connections, then adjusting something else. "It fills its viewers with the darkest emotions or impulses you felt, in your entire life. To do that… it first needs to analyze, process, and digest your entire life."

Seo frowned.

"Liantor found out all about you, using that gemstone," the Doctor continued. "But when he did, he found out more than you or I ever knew. He said your past was the key to defeating the Daleks. He mentioned… Project Olitzitz."

Seo's eyes went wide.

Project Olitzitz.

Liantor had told her about that, too.

"Vortex Shield Clamps," the Doctor requested, holding out his hand.

Seo dug through the tool box. "But the Daleks don't have anything to do with the Olitzitz War."

"No?" the Doctor asked.

"I fought in it, beginning to end," Seo replied. "I'd have known, if any Daleks showed up."

She found the tool he wanted, and handed it to him.

"Ergun thought the Time War and the Olitzitz War were connected," the Doctor said, continuing his work. "What if he was right?"

Seo said nothing.

She didn't want to think about poor Ergun.

"Your Pacifist group," the Doctor said. "Who started it?"

Seo blinked. "What?"

"Who started the Pacifists?" the Doctor asked, again. He clamped down something, and tweaked another set of wiring. "It wasn't you. Wasn't Astra. So who?"

Seo hesitated. "I… don't know."

"And you never thought to ask?"

"Of course I thought to ask!" Seo retorted. "I've tried to trace it back plenty of times. I just… kind of… can't. I keep getting stuck."

The Doctor finished up his jury-rigging. "Exactly."

He slid himself out from underneath the console, and dusted off his hands.

"A group you're using to manipulate the Key to Time," the Doctor said, "and you don't know who started it, or why. You don't even know all the people who are in it! You asked Narvin if I was in it, when you first met me — and you really should have known that."

Seo said nothing.

"I think someone brought the Pacifists together, specifically, so you'd be able to manipulate the Key to Time," the Doctor said. "I think this same someone _knew_ the Key to Time would effect Romana — just like they knew all about Project Olitzitz, and the Daleks' plans. They've been planning this all very carefully, so they can destabilize and perhaps even annihilate Gallifrey — and pin all the blame on _you_."

Seo's eyes widened.

"And, what's more," the Doctor went on, "I think that very same someone got extremely nervous, the moment I turned up — because they knew I'd stop them. And _that's_ why you've been seeing a strange man wandering around, trying to convince you to kill me."

Seo just stared at him.

It made a horrible kind of sense.

But if the strange man was the one behind all this, and the strange man was a Tevin…

"The Tevin people are manipulating me, to wipe out the Time Lords?" Seo asked.

The Doctor shoved his tools into the tool box. "Why not? Given what Rassilon did to them, I can't imagine they like us very much."

Seo grimaced.

"Narvin clearly figured out what was really going on," the Doctor told her. "He knew that, if he reported the Tevin's plan to the High Council, the Time Lords would decide the easiest way to get rid of the problem would be to kill you. That's why he's gotten me involved, instead."

Seo bit her lower lip. Narvin had forced the Doctor to get involved — and how many times had the Doctor placed his own life at risk, since? Just to spare her the High Council's wrath!

Seo put her hand on the Doctor's, as he closed the toolbox.

"Doctor," she said, quietly, "you don't have to do this. It's _my_ problem. You can let _me_ deal with it. Alone."

"Alone?" The Doctor stared at her — like this had, quite literally, never occurred to him.

"It wasn't fair for Narvin to drag you into this," Seo went on. "You're already getting death threats, just for getting involved. If you keep helping me… you could die."

"Well, yes, I could!" the Doctor said, with a grin. "But that's all par for the course. No point in living if you can't live a little dangerously." He stood up, and pat the central console. The Gem of Braxiatel was sitting, incongruously, in the center. "Now! First things first! Let's get this thing working and bypass that nasty psychic trap, so we can see what it'll show us about your past."

He offered Seo a hand to her feet.

She took it, and got up.

"Of course, before we do that!" The Doctor flipped the last few switches on the central console. "Better move the TARDIS out into deep space — just in case it all goes wrong and we wind up spewing temporal energy all over the place."

Seo looked a little alarmed by this idea.

"Not that that'll happen, of course," the Doctor assured her, as he yanked down the dematerialization lever. "Hopefully."

"You fill me with such confidence, Doctor," Seo muttered.

The Doctor opened his mouth to reassure her.

But that was when the Gem of Braxiatel began to pulse with strobing energy, and the whole TARDIS shook, violently. The console began to spark, and the cloister bell went off.

"What?!" the Doctor cried, grabbing onto the central console. He stared at the readings. "That shouldn't happen!"

Seo grabbed onto an arm chair, to stop herself flying across the room. "Is this the Gem of Braxiatel going wrong?" she asked. "Or does your TARDIS just _always_ go out of control, whenever I'm onboard?"

The Doctor began flicking switches on the console. "No, this isn't just the Gem of Braxiatel going wrong. Someone else must have found the gem, before us. They hacked it!"

"Someone else? You mean the Tevin?" Seo guessed.

The Doctor squinted at the screen, again, then tried flicking a few more switches, to get his TARDIS under control. "Probably. They've used it to hijack the TARDIS navigational controls. They're moving us somewhere — and I can't change course."

The TARDIS lurched, again.

"Moving us… where?" Seo said.

"If I can just… clear up…!" the Doctor said, trying a few more knobs and levers, frantically.

The screen went blank.

Then blinked up the destination coordinates.

The Doctor's breath caught in his throat. "Oh."

Seo tried to stumble over to the Doctor, but couldn't manage it, with the constant bumping and bucking of the TARDIS. "Where…?"

"Back into the outskirts of your Olitzitz war," the Doctor said, "before you reality-jumped us to Atrios."

"You mean, right into the path of that Dalek missile?" Seo asked.

But the look on the Doctor's face suggested it was worse than that.

"We're heading for the Dalek ship that fired it, aren't we?" Seo asked.

"Materializing right in the middle of it, yes," the Doctor said.

He tried to yank the Gem of Braxiatel free, but it burned his hand. The TARDIS whined, yet again, as it kept getting dragged, inevitably, towards the Dalek ship.

"But… why?!" Seo insisted. "What is Project Olitzitz — and what could the Daleks possibly want with me?" She waved her right hand at the Doctor. "I told you. I'm useless! They're just hands, now! No magic powers, no nothing!"

"Except inside a TARDIS," the Doctor said, still fiddling with buttons and levers on the console — furiously trying to find a way out of this. "And guess what the Daleks are about to get."

Seo's eyes went wide.

"Hands," the Doctor repeated, with a frown. Then his eyes lit up. "Hands!" He leapt over to her. "That's it! We'll do what we did, last time! Use your hands to get out of this!"

Seo yanked her hands away from him. "You almost died, last time!"

"Seo, if we materialize on that Dalek ship, I'll be really dead," said the Doctor. "No chance of revival. No chance of regeneration."

The TARDIS bucked, again, and Seo nearly fell over. The Doctor reached out and grabbed her, catching her before she could hit the ground.

"I can't force you," the Doctor said. "But I'm asking."

Seo said nothing for another few seconds, trying to think of any other option she had. But she didn't know enough about how to fly a TARDIS to come up with another way out.

"Oh, fine," Seo gave in. "Do it."

The Doctor grabbed her by the hand, and sprinted towards the central console. "Excellent."

Seo stumbled after the Doctor. "No, wait, Doctor! You grabbed my _left_ …!"

To late.

The Doctor had grabbed her left hand in his right, and had already slammed down his other hand onto the telepathic circuits. The TARDIS convulsed, around them. A swirl of purple light enveloped them both. The Gem of Braxiatel flashed, reacting to something the Doctor had just done.

Then, in the blink of an eye, the Doctor was gone.

Vanished.

"What the…?!" Seo looked around herself. She'd never seen anything like this happen, before. "Doctor?!"

No answer.

And the TARDIS was still heading for the Dalek ship. Maybe the Doctor was there, already. Maybe not. Seo had no idea.

But she wasn't going to rescue him by winding up at the mercy of the Daleks.

"That gem," Seo decided, jumping for the console. She tried to pry it out, but it burned her hands. She tried reprogramming the console, but a mild electric jolt ran through her, the moment she touched it. Even when she used the rubber gloves… the heat from the console just melted them.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Seo shouted.

She looked around herself. There had to be something around here that she could use! She just had to look and think and find a way out of this. Maybe… maybe if she…

The lights flicked off.

The power failed.

Seo braced herself, fearing the worst.

She just hoped that the Doctor wasn't dead, already.


	33. Chapter 33

The Doctor found himself tumbling down onto a bright, cheery-looking planet, with a blue-green sky and grass that felt velvet beneath his fingers. He landed in the middle of the grass, groaning, as he got up.

Nothing was broken. Or damaged.

But where was he?

"Are you okay?" came a voice beside him.

The Doctor looked up. He hadn't noticed anyone there, a moment ago. But now… he saw a little girl, staring down at him in wonder.

"Oh." The Doctor sat up. "Hello, there."

The little girl looked very young, with brown pigtails, and wide, expressive eyes. She was dressed in a little plaid dress that ruffled in the breeze.

Or perhaps… that was just how he _expected_ her to look.

The little girl pointed up. "You fell out of the sky!"

"Yes, it appears so," the Doctor agreed. He tried to brush as much of the grass as he could off his clothes, but the grass clung to them. He gave it up, and extended a hand, to shake. "Hello. I'm the Doctor."

The little girl didn't shake his hand. She clasped hers behind her back. "Doctor? Like the thing you see when you get a shot, and then they give you lollipops and balloons?"

"Yes, but I'm not that kind of doctor," the Doctor explained. "I tend to avoid letting people get shot."

"Daddy gives me shots, too, now," said the little girl. She made a face, and squirmed, uncomfortably. "I don't like it. They hurt."

"Well, I promise not to give you any shots," said the Doctor. He reached into his pocket and brought out a small paper bag — which he'd been lucky to refill, back in the TARDIS. "Here. Have a Jelly Baby. The green ones are best."

The little girl tried one. And laughed, as she realized they were yummy.

"I like you," she said. Then, introduced herself — and told him her name.

It was long, pretty, and most of it certainly wasn't in any human language.

Which confirmed one or two of the Doctor's theories.

"Is your name Dr. Company?" the girl asked, suddenly excited.

"No, just the Doctor," said the Doctor, standing up, straight.

The girl looked crestfallen.

"Why?" the Doctor asked.

The little girl fidgeted. "Daddy always sends me away to play with friends, whenever he's 'expecting Company'. I want to meet Mr. Company."

The Doctor laughed. "That isn't someone's name. Your father has guests over."

The little girl frowned. "Oh."

"But if you are who I think you are," the Doctor said, "then I suspect that your father and I need to have a little chat." He shoved his hands into his pockets. "He's a… Tevin, isn't he?"

The little girl stared at him. Surprised. "How did you know?"

"As I said… I know who you are," the Doctor replied. "And I've a feeling that my only way back to my ship will be with your father and his magic hands. Where can I find him?"

The little girl hesitated.

"When Company comes… no one sees Daddy," the little girl said, in a small voice. " _No one_."

Oh.

Now, that was interesting.

"Mrs. Kaitlyn saw Company," said the little girl. "And then I didn't see her again, and nobody saw her again, and Daddy said she had to go away and not come back. He didn't say why."

"So… your father invites over mysterious guests," the Doctor said, "and if anyone sees them, those people… disappear?"

The little girl nodded.

"Now that's very worrying," the Doctor said. Then, muttering, "And not something Seo mentioned to me, before."

He thought back to Narvin — hiding away some of Seo's memories.

Just what had Narvin seen, inside Seo's head? What else had he hidden from her?

"Perhaps… we should spy on your father and his 'company', a bit," the Doctor proposed. He grinned at the little girl. "What do you say?"

The little girl clapped her hands in excitement. "I like spying!"

"I thought you might." The Doctor offered her a hand, to take. Then realized… a little girl who kept her power in her hands might not find this a comforting gesture. And dropped it. "Lead on, MacDuff!"

* * *

Back in the TARDIS, Seo was trying to figure out what the hell was going on.

One moment, she'd been plummeting, out of control, towards a battleship filled to the brim with Daleks.

Then the lights had gone out.

And now…

Seo watched, as an almost ethereal figure walked across the floor of the TARDIS. He approached the central console and, expertly, began to reprogram it.

The Gem of Braxiatel melted, in its spot on the console.

Seo stared at the ethereal figure moving in the darkness. He was growing clearer and clearer, like a fuzzy picture coming slowly into focus.

But she didn't need to see him, to know who he was.

"It's you, isn't it?" Seo said, venturing towards him. "That Tevin."

The strange man didn't answer her.

He simply reprogrammed the TARDIS, making it level out and fly, smoothly, away from the Dalek ship.

"Did you create the Pacifists?" Seo demanded. "Are you using me to take revenge on Gallifrey?"

"Not me, no," said the strange man.

Seo stalked forwards, angry and scared and trying to keep herself under control. "You obviously want me alive for something," she insisted, "or you wouldn't be moving me out of the way of that Dalek ship. So what? What the hell do you want me to do, for you?!"

The strange man turned around.

"Have you given any thought to my offer?" the strange man asked her. "About the Doctor?"

Seo almost laughed, in incredulity. "You've got to be kidding me!"

"The Doctor threatens… a number of important plans," the strange man said. "If he isn't destroyed, he'll continue meddling. And if he meddles… well… people will die. Lots of people. Maybe even you, yourself. Maybe even Narvin!"

This time, Seo really did laugh.

Actually broke down, cracking up.

"Oh, this is way too good," Seo said, doubling over. She wiped some tears from her eyes. "You know, I've gotta thank you. I was freaking out about the Doctor, after he disappeared — I even thought, for a moment, that I'd vaporized him." She pointed at the strange man. "But now, you've shown up! And if you still want him dead… it means the Doctor's fine! Totally fine!"

The strange man didn't look amused.

"Sorry," Seo said, trying to calm down. "I know it's mean to laugh at people. It's just… this whole thing is getting really ridiculous."

The strange man was obviously not used to being laughed at.

He didn't like it.

"It isn't ridiculous, at all," the strange man said. "The Doctor has to die. If you kill him, you'll be rewarded. If not… everything will go very, very wrong — and you'll live to regret your decision. It's perfectly simple."

"That's not what I…!" Seo threw up her hands. "I mean, me! It's ridiculous that you're pestering _me_! Of all people!"

"How so?" asked the strange man.

Seo thudded her hands down on her chest. "Because I don't kill people, anymore! And I'm definitely not going to start just because you gave me a few vague warnings. And… I mean… seriously!" She pointed at the TARDIS doors. "Have you seen how many people, out there, would jump at the chance to kill the Doctor? And yet… you asked _me_!"

"I have the power to offer you a better life, if you do what I want," the strange man said, still deadly serious. "Kill the Doctor, and I'll give you anything you desire. I can return your powers to you. Give you riches beyond your wildest dreams. You can even live like royalty."

"And now you're trying to _bribe_ me?" Seo said. She shook her head. "Maybe, if I didn't know the Doctor, at all, I would have at least hesitated over that one. I mean, I do like money. But my answer would still, ultimately, have been no." She leaned forwards. Shouted: " _I don't kill people, anymore!_ How many times do I have to say it?!"

The strange man considered. "No, of course you wouldn't give in, if someone offered you a better life. The Olitzitz offered. And I've seen what you did to them."

Seo's laughter dried up.

That wasn't the kind of thing you joked about.

"Oh, did that hurt?" the strange man noted. "Interesting." He flipped a few switches and pulled a lever, bringing the TARDIS in to land. "Maybe there _is_ something you want enough to kill for, after all."

"The only thing you've offered me, so far, that I even remotely care about is Narvin's life," said Seo. She crossed her arms. "And you can't kill him. He's on Gallifrey… and I'm guessing they'll have numerous defenses to keep out a Tevin."

The strange man pointed at the TARDIS doors. "Open them."

Seo glanced at the doors. A little confused. "Why?"

The strange man said nothing.

With extreme caution, Seo headed over to the doors, and cracked them open, a little. Peered through the crack, just enough to see her surroundings.

The moment she saw what lay outside, she flung the doors open, wide.

Stared at the landscape in horror.

"No," Seo said. "It can't be…"

The coordinate panel flickered on, behind her. Seo ran back to it, double checking. But everything she'd feared was true.

"That's impossible!" Seo insisted.

"In your Earth-ship, perhaps," the strange man said. "But this is a TARDIS. A Time Lord vehicle. Their vessels can do things yours can't even dream of."

Seo said nothing.

She was frozen, by the console. Not daring to move.

"Aren't you going outside?" the strange man asked.

"You know I can't," Seo snapped. She didn't dare glance outside, again. "I remember this place. This time." She bunched her hands into fists. "I can't change my own past."

"No," the man agreed. "But _I_ can."

Seo said nothing.

"The Doctor is just one person," the man said. "You barely know him. Eliminate that life, and I can give you… so many more. One life, in exchange for rewriting your own history."

Seo still said nothing.

"Not just this part of your history, either," said the man. "I could rewrite every single moment you regret. I could save your father. I could rescue you from your sire. I could stop the Olitzitz War. Stop you from killing the Olitzitz. Stop you from killing… billions of others."

Seo took long, shaky breaths.

This wasn't fair.

It just _wasn't fair!_

"Just kill the Doctor," said the man.

"Why?" Seo shouted, spinning around to face him. She flung her arms open. "If you can rewrite my whole history, like that, why do you need _me_ to kill this one tiny person for you?!"

The man regarded her, curiously. "You really don't have any idea, do you? Why I'm targeting _you_ , specifically?"

"No, I don't!" Seo confirmed. "I thought I made that really clear, earlier!"

The strange man leaned in.

"My agent, long ago, asked me to make sure the Doctor was dead," he whispered. "And he pledged me 'anything', in payment. Even your life."

"Your agent?" Seo's eyes went very wide. "You mean… my father?!"


	34. Chapter 34

The Doctor, still wandering around in Seo's past, wondered just what had happened, to get him here. It wasn't like the last time he'd taken Seo's left hand. That had been Seo's past, as filtered through her memories.

This was the real thing.

He soon found himself in front of a lovely wooden house. Elegant and rustic, a sort of log-cabin type thing. The little girl grinned, as she saw it.

"Home," she announced.

But there was something wrong — something on the edge of the Doctor's perception. He glanced beside the house, but saw nothing. Or… not _quite_ nothing.

"That's strange," said the Doctor. He pulled out the sonic screwdriver, and began buzzing it at the patch of nothing he couldn't quite see.

"What's strange?" the little girl asked. "You mean the space ship?"

The Doctor glanced at her. "You can see it?"

The little girl nodded.

"Interesting." The Doctor adjusted some settings on his sonic, and tried again.

This time, for just a second, the space ship flashed into view, in front of them.

Then, it was gone.

But it only took the Doctor a second, to recognize it.

"You… said… your father actually _invites_ this 'Company' over?" the Doctor asked, his voice shaking, a little. "He's… _collaborating_ with them? Voluntarily?"

The little girl examined him. "You look scared."

The Doctor turned his gaze to the little girl. "Scared? Oh, yes. Terrified." He set off, towards the house. "It seems… your father has been keeping some very bad company, indeed."

The little girl hurried to catch up.

They crept beneath a window, and the Doctor peaked through. The curtains had been drawn, but… he caught the glint of metal, inside.

"What…?" the little girl asked, trying to jump up so she could see.

The Doctor shushed her. "Drawn curtains," he whispered. "Nothing to see." He twirled his sonic in his hands. "But… possibly… something to hear."

He soniced the window open, a crack.

"…GENETIC MODIFICATIONS MUST BE COMPLETED ON SCHEDULE," came a grating, Dalek voice.

The little girl shuddered at the voice, scared. Subconsciously, her form seemed to fade into the shadows… until she had almost become one with them.

The Doctor, remembering where she'd been standing, before she disappeared, draped an arm around her shoulders, to comfort her.

The little girl felt reassured by the gesture.

She began to fade back into reality.

Neat little trick of hers, the Doctor reflected. Ability to hide in shadows.

"Yes, yes, I know you guys are sticklers about your schedule," said another voice — this one familiar from Seo's memory of her father. "And I'm trying my best. But the work is very delicate — and she's just a little girl. She doesn't like all the injections."

The Doctor remembered the little girl telling him about the shots.

He wondered just how many shots this little girl had been given.

"ALL MODIFICATIONS MUST MEET DALEK SPECIFICATIONS AND DEADLINES," said the Dalek. "PROJECT OLITZITZ MUST BE CARRIED OUT. THE TIME LORDS MUST BE DESTROYED. YOU WILL OBEY."

"Oh, come on, you think I'm delaying to _save_ the Time Lords?" The girl's father scoffed. "I'd be happy to see Gallifrey burn, and you know it. But this experiment is supposed to help _both_ of us — not just you."

The Dalek said nothing.

"I have to save my people," the girl's father insisted. "Project Olitzitz is now my only hope of doing so."

The Doctor looked down at the little girl.

She was still trying to jump up and see what was going on.

"We should get away," the Doctor whispered to her, shutting the window. In fact, the Doctor thought, he should get the little girl far away from _all_ of this. That would be the responsible thing to do.

The only problem was… he couldn't.

He'd already seen her future.

"Why?" the little girl asked, a little too loudly. "What's going on? I can't see!"

She tried to jump, again.

The Doctor grabbed her by the shoulders, to stop her.

Even through the closed window, he could hear the Dalek shouting, "ALERT! WE ARE OBSERVED!"

* * *

Back in the TARDIS, Seo stood in front of the open double doors. Looking out at the landscape, before her.

She could already hear the screams starting.

"Your father wanted the Doctor dead," said the strange man, beside her. "The Doctor threatened all his plans. Threatened everything. Your father contacted me, and asked me to make sure it happened."

She darted her eyes over to the man. In a hard, angry voice, said, "Don't talk about my father, again."

"You don't believe it?" the man asked. "I'm sure your memories of your father paint a very different picture of him."

"Look, if you don't shut up about my father," Seo snapped, "then someone _is_ going to die — but it won't be the Doctor."

She kept staring out those double doors. Her face looked torn between decisions. Her legs wanted nothing more than to run out of the TARDIS. But everything in her brain shouted at her that crossing her own timeline was a terrible idea.

"I can't…" Seo said, to herself.

But she wasn't sure if she meant, "I can't stand here and watch what's about to happen, without doing anything to stop it", or "I can't run out there and attempt to change my own history."

Both seemed equally powerful arguments.

"Is… the Doctor out there?" Seo asked. "Can you just tell me that?"

The man said nothing.

When she turned around to face him, she found that he'd vanished.

"Knowing my luck, he probably is," Seo muttered. "He's probably out there, right now, wandering around in my own past, with no idea of the danger."

She hesitated, a second longer.

If she walked out those doors… was she agreeing to kill the Doctor? Or did she have to actually say 'yes'? She didn't know. And that scared her.

But when the ground started to shake, and the screams multiplied, Seo found that she was already sprinting out of the TARDIS, and into the city.

"I'm just doing this to save the Doctor," Seo tried to tell herself. "Once I find him, I'll get him back to the TARDIS and we'll leave. I won't change a thing."

But she knew, deep down inside… that it was a lie.

* * *

The Doctor, still hiding beneath the windowsill on the side of the house, little girl beside him, listened as the Dalek inside announced, once more:

"INTRUDER DETECTED! INTRUDER DETECTED!"

The Doctor half expected the Dalek to blow a chunk out of the wall, in order to find them. But it didn't.

"Listen," the Doctor told the little girl. "They need you alive, but they don't need me. I must get back to my friend, and the only way I can do that is with your help."

She was very young, the Doctor knew. She might not be able to do what he wanted.

But that was a gamble he had to take.

"You said you wanted Daddy to help you," the little girl pointed out.

"Yes, but I have a feeling your father isn't terribly sympathetic to Time Lords," said the Doctor. "And the moment that Dalek spots me, I'll be… well… gone." He slid a finger across his own throat. "Like the others."

The little girl looked very concerned.

"Your left hand," the Doctor said, as he heard the door to the house open. "It's fully functional, at this point in time. Can you move me to a point forwards in your own timeline?"

"I don't know," said the little girl.

From the front of the house, the Doctor heard the girl's father speaking to the Dalek. "I will not allow you to keep exterminating everyone who comes near my home. There's already an investigation into Mrs. Kaitlyn's disappearance."

"Can you try?" the Doctor whispered. "Please?"

"BIOSCAN INDICATES THAT ONE OF THE INTRUDERS IS A TIME LORD," said the Dalek, plunger extended.

"A Time Lord?" The girl's father jumped at this. "Here?! But… how did they find us?!"

"UNKNOWN." The Dalek continued to scan. "THE OTHER INTRUDER IS HALF-TEVIN."

"My daughter? With a Time Lord?!" The girl's father began to run. "Oh, no. No, no, no!"

"Please!" the Doctor whispered.

The little girl took the Doctor's hands in both of hers. And concentrated, very hard.

In a flash, the Doctor found himself back inside his TARDIS.

* * *

The little girl's father skidded to a stop, when he found the little girl, alone, by the windowsill. He breathed a sigh of relief, when he saw she wasn't hurt.

He raced over and scooped her up, off the ground. Held her in his arms.

"Where did the Time Lord go?" the girl's father asked her.

"Nowhere," said the little girl.

The Dalek rounded the corner, and the girl squealed in fright, at the sight of it. She curled up into her father, clinging to him.

"THE EXPERIMENT HAS BEEN COMPROMISED," said the Dalek. "THE CHILD MUST BE EXTERMINATED."

"Calm down, your experiment is fine!" The girl's father shushed the little girl, patting her head. "Whatever that Time Lord did to her, I'll soon find out. Then, it's just a simple matter of undoing the sabotage and suppressing her memories of the event. She's half-human, so that shouldn't be difficult."

Her father set the little girl down on the ground. Bent over, and took her left hand in his. They glowed, as the girl's father relived her last memory.

"The Doctor," her father muttered. "Never heard of him."

"THE DOCTOR IS AN ENEMY OF THE DALEKS!" said the Dalek, suddenly alarmed. "HE MUST BE EXTERMINATED!"

"Is he? Interesting." The girl's father frowned, as he began to suppress the memory within the little girl's mind. "I'm inclined to agree with you, on that. The Doctor claimed he'd come here from her future."

That made the Dalek even more alarmed.

The girl's father did something, inside the girl's head, and she wavered. He caught the little girl, as she drooped, and then fell asleep. He cradled her in his arms.

"THE DOCTOR MUST BE EXTERMINATED!" the Dalek shouted. "THE DOCTOR MUST BE EXTERMINATED!"

"And he will be," the girl's father promised. He stroked the top of his daughter's head. "Just leave it to me. I have contacts. With their help — I'll take care of everything."


	35. Chapter 35

The Doctor, appearing back in his TARDIS, looked around. "Seo?" he called.

No answer.

"Every single time!" the Doctor complained. "I mean, really. I know my companions like to wander off — but this is getting ridiculous!"

He headed over to the double doors.

Pushed them open.

Outside, he could see a city in pain. People around him were screaming. Buildings were on fire. Some were crumbling, randomly.

Nearby, he could see a crowd running away, in a blind panic.

"As I said, ridiculous!" the Doctor complained, stepping outside and shutting the door behind him. "I leave her for just a few minutes, and what does she do? Wander off, into the middle of a disaster zone!"

A teenage boy and a little girl were running past, clearly terrified. The girl stumbled, and the boy spun around, panicked that she'd stopped running.

"It's right on top of us!" he told the little girl, but she was too scared to move. Desperately, the teenage boy turned to the Doctor. "Please, mister. Help us!"

The Doctor could see it, now.

A shadow was spreading across the pavement, behind them. Whenever it touched someone, that person boiled and bubbled away into nothing.

The shadow reached out for the girl's ankle.

The Doctor grabbed the girl by her other arm, and he and the teenage boy hauled her up and dragged her away from the shadow monster.

They raced down the street, fast as they could.

"What's going on, here?" the Doctor asked.

"I don't know!" the boy said. He looked like he was desperately trying to be brave, but failing. "There were explosions. Buildings crumbled and the ground shook. Then… this shadow thing showed up. It got Mom!"

The girl was actually crying.

"Imula and I only just made it out, alive," said the boy. "I don't know where to go."

"Sister?" the Doctor guessed.

The boy nodded. "I'm… Cariolo," he said. "She's Imula." He hesitated, as if only just realizing that the man who was helping them was a complete stranger. "You are…?"

"Call me the Doctor," the Doctor said. "And I promise, Cariolo, I will get both you and your sister out of this, alive."

Cariolo stared at him. "How?"

In front of them, the river they'd been about to cross suddenly burst into flames.

They all skidded to a stop.

"Oh, I'm very clever," said the Doctor. He pulled out his sonic screwdriver, along with the bits that Seo had attached to it, earlier. "Sono-luminescence. A trick a friend of mine came up with. Turns sound waves…"

The shadow advanced towards them.

And the Doctor shot it with a burst from his sonic screwdriver.

"…into light!" the Doctor cried, with a grin, as the sonic emitted a burst of bright light, directly into the shadow.

The shadow, sensing the light, suddenly retreated.

"It's going away!" cried Imula.

"Doctor, are we safe?" Cariolo asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "I doubt that. Whatever's going on, here, it's more than just a shadow creature. Explosions, earthquakes, and…"

The Doctor stopped.

Frowned.

"Shadow," the Doctor muttered, remembering the extremely young Seo — who'd been able to look like a shadow, when she got scared. "Oh, dear."

He really wasn't liking the implications of this. Not one bit.

"Is something wrong, Doctor?" asked Cariolo.

The Doctor gave him a reassuring grin. "Nope. Nothing at all! I just… really need to find my friend. She might be in the most terrible danger."

He turned to the river.

"Still, first things first," the Doctor said, adjusting his sonic screwdriver, and removing the sono-luminescent bits. "Let's get you two to safety."

"Using that… thing?" Cariolo said, frowning at the screwdriver. "Whatever it is?"

"It's not a whatever-it-is, it's a sonic screwdriver," the Doctor said, choosing the right settings. "And it's…"

"I wanna see!" Imula cried, jumping up and grabbing it out of his hands. She examined it, fascinated. "Ooh!"

"Imula!" Cariolo snatched it from her. He turned back to the Doctor, handing it over. "Sorry, Doctor. Here."

"Much appreciated," said the Doctor, and buzzed the sonic at the water.

The flames began to die down. But, instead, the planet shook, and a chasm opened up, beside them.

People screamed, as they tumbled inside.

The Doctor dragged Cariolo and Imula away from the edge.

" _That_ shouldn't have happened!" the Doctor said. He frowned, examining the sonic, more carefully. "Not on this setting."

He stepped in front of the kids, advancing forwards, using his sonic to scan the edge of the chasm.

The ground shook, again, and the Doctor began to fall inside the chasm.

Cariolo grabbed the Doctor by the hand, as he fell, and caught him. Imula tried to help, grabbing the Doctor's other hand. With a great strain, Cariolo and Imula heaved the Doctor out of the chasm and onto solid ground.

Those children were stronger than they looked.

"Interesting," said the Doctor, as he examined the readings of the chasm that he'd gotten on his sonic. "That's a temporal reading. There's time distortion on this planet." Then, with another thought, added, "This catastrophe isn't something to do with the Olitzitz, is it?"

"What's an Olitzitz?" asked Imula.

Well. That answered that.

"Doctor," said Cariolo, holding his little sister's hand. "What about that box of yours. It looked pretty strong. Could we hide in there? Would we be safe?"

"Yes, probably," said the Doctor. "But it's right in the heart of the shadow creature, so I doubt we'll be able to get to it." He gestured at them to follow him, as he ran along the bank of the river — away from the chasm. "Come along! We've got a world to save!"

* * *

The military and security officials in the top secret government bunker were hysterical.

The whole planet had come under attack, and none of them could figure out why, how, by whom, or what they could do to stop it.

"Tsunamis off the coast of Irrosi," reported someone with a headset. "Mountains collapsing in Olin. Volcanoes erupting in the heart of…"

"General, we've just had reports that the rivers, oceans, lakes — they're all on fire," said another someone with a headset. "Even the sky's turned red."

General Halwather felt a churning hopelessness in his stomach. "It's the apocalypse," he muttered. "The mythical end of days. How can we hope to stop that?"

"There's nothing mystical or mythical about it," came another voice.

They all spun around, to find a strange-looking woman with blond hair and pale skin had somehow broken into the bunker. She dashed into the bunker, and began poking at buttons on a number of displays.

"The water's been laced with a highly flammable chemical compound," said the woman. She yanked a stopped-up flask out of her pocket, and handed it to someone. "Test it, if you don't believe me. The substance emits a red gas, when it burns. That's what's changing the color of your sky."

General Halwather jumped to his feet. "Who is this woman? How did she get in here, past the security checks?"

The woman spun around. "Your world is dying, General Halwather. I'm the only person who knows how to stop it. So if you want to live…" She stared straight into his eyes. "…you'll trust me."

General Halwather couldn't stop himself staring into those eyes.

His head felt fuzzy, as he did.

Like he couldn't quite think straight.

Before he was fully aware what he was doing, he nodded, and commanded the others to, "Do anything the woman says."

"Thank you." She turned back to the monitors. "And it's Seosyrae, by the way. Not 'the woman'."

She frowned, deeply, at what she saw on the screen. The volcanoes exploding. The mountains shaking themselves apart and then collapsing into debris.

She cursed, beneath her breath. "I'd forgotten about that. One more problem to deal with." Then spun around, and turned to the person holding the test tube. "Well? Don't just stand there! Get that to Nime, down in the lab! Tell him to produce a counter-chemical, now!"

"Yes, ma'am," said the person with the vial, running off to do it.

General Halwather had never heard of 'Seosyrae', but the fact that she seemed to know everything about the situation and even know everyone's names… was encouraging.

Seo darted to another control panel. "Oh, there we go! That explains that!" And began yanking pieces off of it, exposing the wiring inside. "Fused. Of course."

"Chief Engineer Pelom came down, only this morning, to fix the wiring in that…" General Halwather began.

"Pelom is dead," said Seo, beginning to rewire the machine. "Has been since… oh, let's see… about fifteen minutes before someone came in here and fiddled with this thing."

General Halwather frowned. "That's not possible."

"This control panel is causing the earthquakes," Seo said, as she worked as fast as she could, rewiring it. "From here, you can detonate missiles. A few underground missiles, at the perfect frequency and in the perfect spots, can cause uncontrollable tremors, on every continent. Certain pollutant-containing factories along the rivers and oceans were sabotaged, so that the tremors would knock out the safety features and dump a specific chemical mixture into the water. Hence, red sky, burning water. Seen any horsemen in the sky? Or was that on a different planet?"

"Different… planet?" General Halwather began to feel out of his depth. "Just… who or what are you?"

"Technically, I'm a thief, but I save people on dying worlds, during my down-time," Seo said. Something sparked beneath her fingers, and she shook them out. "Damn. Definitely forgot about that." She squinted, her brow bent in concentration, as if trying to dredge up a long-forgotten memory. "Oh, yeah." Then hooked a few more things together.

And stood up, flicking a switch on the panel.

The earthquakes stopped.

The mountains stopped crumbling.

No new volcanoes erupted.

"How…?" asked General Halwather.

"I used sonic vibrations to set up a counter frequency," Seo said. "I got the idea from a friend. He has this device that creates sonic bursts, and I just thought… sonics might help."

She raced over to the monitors.

"Actually, that's another thing I need someone to do, for me," Seo instructed the people by the monitors. "My friend. Unshaven, wavy chestnut hair, leather jacket. Calls himself 'the Doctor'. I need to find him."

"Ma'am, with all due respect," General Halwather snapped, "this is a military base! You can't just use our equipment to help you find your…"

"Considering I'm saving your planet, I think I can do whatever the hell I want, General Halwather," Seo countered. "And I'd appreciate it if you were a little more grateful."

General Halwather bit back his anger at her insubordination. Because… well, she was right. She was saving the world. He couldn't really argue with her.

"Yes… this is why I prefer to work from behind the scenes," Seo muttered, noting his anger. "It cuts down on arguing time." She turned back to another lackey, behind her. "How's Nime doing with that water sample?"

Before she got an answer, she felt a rumble, underfoot.

"What?" Seo stumbled back to the panel, where she'd been, before. "No. That's not…"

She peered at it.

"Someone's resonating the water, so it counters my sonics!" Seo said. "They've restarted the earthquakes!"

General Halwather didn't understand any of that.

"Damn, that's sneaky," Seo muttered. "I think we all know who pulled off a stunt like that." She sighed. "But how…?"

Seo froze, staring at a reading in the control panel.

Then ran back to the monitors. "The Doctor. Where is he?"

The people looking at the monitors all stared back at her, blankly. There was no way to trace one single person — not now. The world was ending. Everyone was in a panic.

"Check all the big, important, official places," Seo told the people at the monitoring station. "Military bases. Government agencies. Bunkers. Power plants. Anything! I've got to find him!"

"We have bigger things to worry about than your friend!" General Halwather shouted.

Seo spun around. "No, General," she said. "The signal that restarted the earthquakes was sent out by a sonic screwdriver. And that means, right now… we really, really don't."

Ten or fifteen minutes later, one of the people watching the monitors gave a shout. "I found him!" she called. "Breaking into Agrebz military base."

"Agrebz?!" said General Halwather. "But that's impossible! We've got a supply of chemical weapons in that base. It should be impregnable."

"You keep a supply of chemical weapons in the middle of a densely populated metropolis?" Seo shook her head. "Sometimes, I just don't believe people."

She turned back to the monitors. Spotted the Doctor on one of them.

He was breaking into the base, two kids beside him. A little girl and a teenage boy. Helping him out.

"General," said Seo, her voice hard. "Give me your gun."


	36. Chapter 36

"But why are we breaking into this military base, Doctor?" Cariolo asked. "I don't understand."

"Based on what you and your sister have told me," the Doctor replied, "I think someone is doing this to scare people. They're trying to generate a panic, make everyone think this is the apocalypse and the world is ending."

"Someone in this base?" Imula guessed.

The Doctor just shrugged.

"But this _is_ the apocalypse!" Cariolo insisted. "It _must_ be some kind of supernatural judgment on us. I mean… the sky is red! The oceans and rivers are on fire!"

"Basic chemistry," the Doctor explained. "It's not hard, if you know what chemicals you need to mix together. The fire in the water can easily create a red sky."

"And the earthquakes?" asked Cariolo.

"Seismology," the Doctor replied. "Lots of things can make the ground shake. Doesn't always have to be plate tectonics." He gestured at the whole mess, around them. "I'm certain someone's setting this all up. The whole disaster's man-made."

"Even the shadow monster?" Imalu asked.

"Ah." The Doctor cringed. "No — that one, I suspect, is another matter, entirely. A matter I really should speak to my friend about."

Cariolo frowned. "Why? Does your friend deal with lots of shadow monsters?"

"That's precisely what I want to ask her," said the Doctor. He shushed the two children, then began creeping through the base, interested. "Hm. Now, what do they have, here? Something ready for launch, it seems."

He pointed at a missile, waiting on the launch pad.

"They're going to launch a missile, here?" Cariolo asked. "Can they do that?"

"Apparently, they think they can," said the Doctor. "Interesting. I wonder what they use to generate the blast? Something that needs a much smaller blast zone than I'm used to."

He smiled at the two children.

Gestured for them to follow him.

"Come along, you two," he said. "Let's check it out, for ourselves."

"But we'll get caught!" Imula insisted.

"Haven't so far," the Doctor replied. Although… come to think of it… that was a little worrying, in and of itself. Why weren't people running over to them, guns blazing, telling them to freeze and come quietly?

Definitely, something bad was going on, here.

"Cariolo!" Imula called back, noticing him lingering behind to stare at something, nearby. "Come on!"

He spun around, noticed the others up ahead of him, and started racing after them. "Coming!"

* * *

"Halt!" shouted a commander, pointing a gun at the Doctor and his two companions. "What are you civilians doing here?"

It was the first person who'd stopped them, since they'd arrived on the base.

They must be extremely understaffed.

"Well, my friends and I were just…" the Doctor began.

"Imula!" shouted Cariolo.

The two kids rushed the Commander, knocking him over before he'd had a chance to realize what was going on. The gun clattered out of his hands, and onto the ground.

"Grab his gun!" shouted Cariolo.

Imula did so. "Got it!" She jumped to her feet, and pointed it at the Commander. "Do what we say, or die!"

The Doctor grabbed the gun out of Imula's hands. "I'll take that." He quickly removed the ammunition, rendered the gun useless, then tossed it over a shoulder. Turning to Cariolo, added — a little sternly, "That was an absurdly dangerous thing to do."

"Oh, come on! He was going to shoot you!" said Cariolo. He gestured at himself and his sister. "He wouldn't have shot us. We're just kids."

"Yeah," said Imula.

The Doctor stared at Imula and Cariolo. There was something wrong about these two. Perhaps it was the way that Cariolo had so casually referred to himself as a kid — which, the Doctor had learned from Susan back when she'd been in her teenage years, teenagers _never_ did. Or perhaps it was the little girl, the way she started off so scared that she could barely move, and now… she was launching herself at well-armed army personnel. Or maybe it was the way that, despite her age, she seemed so familiar with guns that she could aim one, perfectly.

"There's something wrong about all of this," the Doctor said. But the more he thought about it, the fuzzier his mind seemed to get.

"What's wrong, Doctor?" Imula asked.

The Doctor opened his mouth to answer… but words escaped him. He struggled to catch his last train of thought… but it was gone before he could.

"I don't know," the Doctor answered. He gestured at Cariolo. "Let the Commander go."

Cariolo hesitated, but did so.

The Commander looked at the Doctor and the others, his face completely blank. Then, in a monotone, informed them, "It is time. I have to go."

"What's time?" the Doctor asked. He grabbed the Commander by the sleeve. "Commander? What's time? Where do you have to go?"

"It is time," said the Commander. "I have to go."

"What's wrong with him?" asked Imula.

"Some sort of hypnotic trance," said the Doctor. He reached into his pocket. "I'll see if I can break…"

Cariolo's face went blank. "It is time," he said, also in a monotone. "I have to go."

"Cariolo!" Imula cried.

The Doctor let the Commander go, and ran to Cariolo. "Not you, too. What happened to you?" He fished a pocket watch out of his jacket pocket. "Cariolo, listen to me. I've got a nice, shiny pocket watch, here. See the nice, shiny pocket watch?"

Cariolo's eyes followed the watch, dully.

As the Doctor began to swing it, back and forth.

"Yes, just like that, follow the watch," the Doctor said. The boy's eyes drifted back and forth, along with the watch. "Whatever's gotten inside your mind, Cariolo, I want you to find it. Locate it. And yank it out. Your thoughts are your own. Your will is your own."

Cariolo blinked.

Then blinked again.

"Doctor?" Cariolo put a hand up to his head. "What…?"

"Seems there's a powerful psychic influence around here," the Doctor said. He frowned. Feeling for the thing that had slipped out of his thoughts, such a short time ago. "Something that managed to take over Cariolo. Something that managed to take over that Commander. And something… that's even managed to seep into _my_ mind, somewhat. Which isn't easy."

"Why?" asked Cariolo. "What's so special about you?"

The Doctor looked at Cariolo and Imula, a little harder. Then decided… it may be better not to answer that question.

"Doctor," Imula said, looking around herself. "Where did the Commander go?"

The Doctor looked around.

Sure enough, the Commander was no longer there.

"You don't think he's going to launch that missile, do you?" Cariolo asked. "You know. Wipe us all out?"

"I don't know — but I think it's high time we checked!" The Doctor surged forwards. "Right, then. Which way do you think he would have…?"

"There!" shouted Imula, pointing. "I see him!"

Sure enough, the Commander was now running down the corridors, sprinting towards someplace, urgently.

"We have to catch up to him!" Cariolo cried.

"Oh, we will," the Doctor said, grinning. "We will."

* * *

The good thing, Seo reflected, about having General Halwather on her side was that he could call into Agrebz base, before she even arrived. Which meant, the moment Seo set foot on Agrebz base, everyone there already knew who she was, and was expecting her.

"We've scoured the base, top to bottom, Ma'am," said Lieutenant Pruto, saluting her. "We found the breach where the intruders must have entered, but no intruders."

"Then you didn't scour the base — you just _think_ you did," said Seo. She pointed at the launchpad. "And that missile. What the hell do you think you're doing with that?"

"Orders, ma'am," said Pruto. "Prime Minister Walmo instructed…"

Seo wanted to scream. "When will people ever learn?" She threw her arms open. "The Prime Minister's dead. The Chief Engineer is dead. They're _all_ dead, Lieutenant Pruto. An imposter has been giving out all of the orders, worldwide, for a while, now — and none of you have figured it out, yet."

"It was the Prime Minister's voice," Pruto said.

Seo, in aggravation, parroted back the phrase, "It was the Prime Minister's voice," but exactly matched Pruto's voice, as she did. Even getting his bass tone spot-on.

Pruto stared at her, in disbelief.

"Voices can be faked, Lieutenant," said Seo. "A good enough actor and mimic can fool anyone. And trust me, the one we're dealing with is _very_ good. She can imitate men, woman, children — doesn't matter. All easy. And with just a touch of perception filter left in her physiology… you wouldn't even think to double check her identity or question her orders."

Pruto was just trying to take this all in.

"That's who you're dealing with," said Seo. She pointed at the missile on the launch pad. "The chemical compound in that missile will combine with the red gas in the air, and the magma emissions elsewhere on the planet, to permanently poison the atmosphere. No one will survive this day, Pruto! And I know, because…!"

She stopped.

She couldn't say the next part. She could still remember coming back here, afterwards. Tracking this planet down, again, coming in with a gas mask, and searching for survivors.

No one.

Not one single person had been left alive, on this entire planet.

"Get that missile disarmed and off the launch pad, now," Seo commanded. "Or every last person on this planet will die."

Something about her tone convinced Pruto.

He gave the command.

But before anyone could carry it out, bulkheads sealed around them, and a countdown to launch began.

"We located the intruders, Lieutenant," said a private, nearby them, after receiving a brief report over the radio. "Launch control room. They killed everyone else. Sealed themselves inside."

Seo started hacking into the bulkhead controls. "Then that's where I'm headed."


	37. Chapter 37

The Doctor, coughing, soniced the air vents in the launch control room. They'd only just managed to make it in here before the Commander had sealed the doors shut with heavy bulkheads.

The moment they entered, they found the room strewn with dead bodies.

The air in the room was filled with smoke and poison gas.

"Don't breathe it in," the Doctor warned the two kids. "Breathe through a cloth."

Imula and Cariolo grabbed the bottom of their shirts, and used them as a filter. Imula fell into a coughing fit.

The Doctor was using his respiratory bypass system to great advantage.

"What happened?!" Cariolo cried. His eyes were fixed on the victims, lying dead on the floor.

"Someone killed them all," said the Doctor, as he managed to get the air vents to pump out the bad air and pump in fresh air. "There. Should be back to normal, shortly."

He turned to the Commander, who was coughing like crazy.

"Sorry, Commander, but I'll have to stop you launching that missile," said the Doctor. He grabbed the man, dragged him away from the controls. "It's really rather important for the future of this planet."

Cariolo looked like he was going to be sick, as he stared at all the dead bodies around him. He staggered over to the control console, nearer to the Doctor. Reached out, grabbing the edge for support, as he wavered and tried not to hurl.

"I must obey my orders," said the Commander, still in a monotone. "I must obey!"

"But you'll kill the world!" Imula said, her coughs dying down. Then, to the Doctor, "Why don't you just use that watch thing on him? Like you did on Cariolo?"

"Oh, I doubt it'd work," the Doctor replied, as the Commander's struggles died away, and he drifted into a listless trance. "This mind control even got into _my_ head — and that means it's too strong to be counteracted by a mere fobwatch." He reflected. "Thing is… I've felt exactly this same type of hypnosis, before. It was an ability that used to belong to — what did she call them? Oh, yes. The Riashta Horrin."

Cariolo jumped, at the name.

"Oh, look at that," the Doctor said. "I think you've just given yourself away, Cariolo."

Imula frowned, confused. "But… that's just Cariolo. My big brother."

"Oh, no, it's not," said the Doctor. "In fact, he's not even a 'he', at all." He turned Cariolo around, so the 'boy' faced him, head on. "Don't get me wrong, she's quite the little actress. But she's always taps your shoulder in one specific spot, Imula, just before you act erratically. She suggested hiding inside my TARDIS — like she knew it was more than just a box. Keeps picking my sonic out of my pocket when she thinks I haven't noticed — then replacing it, before I need it, again. Asks questions that are just a little too pointed and on target, pretends to be sick so she can press all kinds of buttons. Besides which, her face is too feminine, and her body… well, it's a bit curvy, don't you think?" The Doctor shrugged. "Her recovery from the hypnosis was the final clincher. Definitely pretending."

"Doctor, what are you talking about?" Cariolo said. "I'm me! Tell him, Imula! I just want to help you! I just want…"

Then, in a flash, all traces of caring or compassion faded from Cariolo's face.

"Ah, screw it," Cariolo said, now in a girl's voice, turning to the control panel and activating the launch. "I was sick of this, anyways."

The Doctor lunged to stop her, but Cariolo shoved him out of the way — with a strength that surprised the Doctor.

Cariolo grabbed a metal rod from the base of a chair, yanked it free. "Don't touch the control panel, Doctor," the now-clearly-female Cariolo threatened. "Or you're dead." She spun around, to face Imula. "Just like this little crybaby."

Then, she plunged the metal rod through Imula's chest.

"No!" the Doctor said, trying to intercept her.

But the Commander, suddenly back in Cariolo's power, grabbed the Doctor by the arms and held him fast.

"Car…iol…?" Imula managed to wheeze.

"Yeah, stop talking, now," Cariolo said, shoving the metal rod through Imula's head. "You're really starting to bug me."

A cracking sound tore through the air, as the metal rod split the bone.

And, with a small sob, little Imula died.

"What did you do that for?" the Doctor demanded. "That little girl did nothing to you! She trusted you."

"So?" Cariolo shrugged. "What do I care? The more they trust, the easier they are to kill." She glanced back at the equipment, behind her. "Wish I'd fed on the brat, but… you know. The heat. Bad for the launch machinery."

"So you just killed her," the Doctor said, fiddling with his sonic screwdriver, behind his back. Taking care to make sure the Commander — still restraining him — couldn't tell what he was doing. "No reason. Just… killed her."

Cariolo shrugged. "She deserved it. Everyone always does."

"And that's what you believe?" The Doctor raised his voice, a little, in righteous indignation — to mask his buzzing the control panel with his sonic screwdriver. "Someday, you'll hate yourself for doing this, you know."

"As if." Cariolo stalked towards him, licking her lips. "But, tell me, Doctor. What are you? There's so much time on you, it's like you've taken a bath in it and little droplets keep dripping off your skin, every time you move." Her eyes looked hungry. "That rich juiciness of eons and eons, mixed with artron. I can almost taste it."

"Yes, you've said that to me, before," the Doctor said. "Except, last time, you seemed embarrassed."

Cariolo's hunger flickered, a hair. Replaced with suspicion. "What do you mean?"

"Let's just say… this isn't the first time we've met," said the Doctor, "and it won't be the last. I've met you, both in your past — and in your future."

And the strangest thing about that was… the Seo he met with Narvin still hadn't known who he was.

"You're quite different, in your own past and future," the Doctor observed. Taking in her deep brown hair, her facial features not yet altered by nano-surgery. "You even look different. But you're still bold, clever, and manipulative — I can see that in all of you."

"Now I know you're lying," said Cariolo. "My past is gone. And I don't have a future." Something died, in her eyes, as she said it. "There's nothing for me, in the future. Just this. Forever."

"Your father was a Tevin," the Doctor prompted. He thought back to that little girl, wandering around in the velvet grass of an alien world. "He used to send you away, telling you he had 'company'. You thought it was someone's name. Mr. Company."

Cariolo paused.

"And you had a rather neat trick you could do, back then," the Doctor continued. "When you got scared… you melted into the shadows."

"How do you know about that?" Cariolo demanded.

"Oh, because I know you," the Doctor said. "I said that, didn't I? I know all about those injections you got, when you were young. All about the Daleks. All about your father. And all about what we saw when we hid together, under the windowsill, and listened in."

The name 'Dalek' seemed to mean nothing to Cariolo.

In fact, she appeared to have no memory of any of her last encounter with the Doctor.

"You know me," Cariolo said, just checking to verify. "You met me, before my father died. I… introduced myself to you?"

"You…" the Doctor started. Then stopped.

Realized where she was going with this.

"I told you my name?" Cariolo asked. "My _birth_ name?"

"No," the Doctor said, quickly.

"Liar." She picked up the metal rod, again. "I was going to save you for dessert… but if you know enough to sign my Writ of Erasure, then you're way too dangerous to live." She gave a cruel smile. "Goodbye, Doctor. Thanks for helping me destroy this planet."

But before she could make her move, a high-pitch feedback sound whined through the Commander's walky-talky.

Cariolo cringed, hesitating for just a second.

The bulkhead swished open. And Seo raced in, armed with a very large, very lethal-looking gun.

"Seo!" the Doctor cried, with a grin. Then, glancing at Cariolo, dropped the grin, and added, hurriedly, "Don't come in!"

"I think it's way too late for that," said Seo. She stepped directly in between Cariolo and the Doctor. Pointed the gun at Cariolo. "You locked the missile launch into place. Undo it. Or you die."

Cariolo grabbed the walky-talky from the Commander, and crushed it underfoot. Then snarled at Seo.

"Seo," the Doctor said, softly. "Put the gun down. This isn't going to help."

"You must be the Doctor's 'friend'," said Cariolo. "So… what? You know me, too?"

Seo met her eyes, steadily.

"Yes," Seo said, her voice so quiet, it was almost inaudible. "I know you. I know you better than anyone else alive." She swallowed, hard. "You're what I hate most. The thing I can't destroy. The thing I can't take back." She stared at her, the hints of tears in her eyes. "I know you. So well. And, somehow, I have to live with that."

Cariolo hesitated, before killing Seo.

As if something… were stopping her.

"Now, shut down that launch," Seo said, pointing the gun in her face. "Or, I swear, I _will_ kill you."

Looking at her, the Doctor was afraid she really might do it, too.

That was a paradox he definitely didn't want to deal with.

"Oh, you want me to disable the launch?" Cariolo asked, heading over to the control panel. "I guess you're a little out of the loop. The Doctor already sabotaged the control panel with his sonic thingy. That's why he had to keep talking so loud, while he was doing it."

Seo blinked. "What?"

"Oh, yeah — I figured that out, way back," Cariolo said. She glanced at the Doctor. "I was gonna let it go. You know. Let him feel like he was winning. Toy with him, a bit, before I tore him to shreds. I mean — he _is_ fun, isn't he?"

"That's how you see him?" Seo said, her hands shaking with fury. "Some kind of… toy, for your amusement?"

"Isn't everyone?" Cariolo shrugged. "Well. Whatever. Now that I know the Doctor's too dangerous to live…" She hit a few switches, undoing the sabotage. "…I dunno… it's just no fun, playing with him."

"No, don't…!" Seo stepped forwards, as if to grab Cariolo and drag her away. But froze. Stopped herself.

"Seo," the Doctor warned.

Cariolo examined her, more carefully. "You know, I take it back," she said. "Maybe I _should_ keep him alive. After all — there's something really weird about you two." She pointed at the Doctor. "He feels sorry for me. You can see it all over his face." She turned to Seo. "But you… I think you _seriously_ hate me." She spread her arms open. "And yet… you don't kill me. You can't even get up the courage to lay a finger on me. Not even if I do something like this."

Screams came from everywhere, around the base. The army personnel burst into golden ribbons of time, their bodies melting under the drainage.

Even the Commander collapsed to the ground, twitching, as the life was drained out of him.

"Stop it!" Seo screamed, lunging at her.

The Doctor had to grab Seo and pull her back, forcibly. "You know you can't touch her." He wrestled the gun out of Seo's hands. "And you definitely can't shoot her. Remember who she is!"

"Remember who I am?" Cariolo asked, as she finished feeding on the personnel of the army base. "That's a weird thing to say. Who am I, to you?"

Seo's eyes were fixed on the control panel, behind Cariolo. It had melted, beneath the heat. "You fused the controls."

"Yeah, I do stuff like that." Cariolo stepped closer to Seo, and the Doctor dragged Seo back, even further. "You've got about a minute left to live. So… go on. Who am I, to you?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you," Seo said.

"Oh, yeah?" said Cariolo. "Try me."

Seo said nothing.

Her eyes were fixed on the control panel.

"Fine, whatever!" said Cariolo, and turned her gaze on the Doctor.

The Doctor bent double, as sudden pain flared through his head. Seo caught him, wrapping her arms around him.

"Doctor?!" Seo cried. Then, looking at Cariolo, " _You_ did this."

Cariolo shrugged. "Tell me, or I make the Doctor's brain go squish."

Seo looked like she wanted to punch her hand straight through the wall.

"What the hell is wrong with the universe?!" Seo snapped. "Is there some memo I missed, telling everyone to try to kill the Doctor for no good reason? I mean, geeze! Leave the poor guy alone!"

"Then tell me," said Cariolo. "Who are you?"

"Who am I?!" Seo thudded her hands against her chest. "Just look at me! Who do you _think_ I am?!"

Cariolo's grip over the Doctor's mind suddenly vanished.

She stared at Seo, not even able to speak.

Seo, instead, ignored her and turned back to the Doctor. "Are you okay?"

"Fine, fine," the Doctor dismissed. His eyes fixed on the control panel. "But we have to find a way to abort that launch."

"Don't worry about it," Seo said, as the countdown neared its conclusion. "Already done."

The Doctor turned back to her. "What, really?"

"You don't honestly think I missed that you sabotaged the control panel?" Seo sighed. "Come on, Doctor. I'm not _that_ stupid. I just figured that she…" Nodding at Cariolo, "…would figure out your sabotage, and counteract it."

"What are you talking about?" Cariolo asked.

Seo laughed. "Really? You don't know?"

As the countdown reached zero, a huge indicator above the control panel flashed, "Abort, abort, abort."

"I figured out about the Doctor's sabotage, remotely, before I entered this room," Seo said. "I went to the secondary control room. Took advantage of his sabotage, and remotely deactivated this control room, so I could switch to the secondary one. Then I locked the controls to auto-abort at the last second." She smiled. "Only thing left for me to do, was to keep you in here, distracted, until the countdown ended."

Cariolo jumped to her feet. "Secondary control room. Fine. Whatever! I'll go there, then."

"You don't get it, do you?" Seo shook her head. "You drained everyone on this base. Even the people in the secondary control room. The heat in there will have done exactly the same thing to that console as it did to this one. Fused the controls. And General Halwather's team is already releasing a chemical to decontaminate the air and water."

Cariolo froze.

"Which, to summarize, means… I've just changed a fixed point in time," Seo said. "This planet was doomed to die… and I just saved it!" She couldn't help but beam at the Doctor, at this. "And you thought your people hated me, _before_! Just think about the looks on their faces, when they see _this_!"

"Clever, bold, and lacking basic sense," the Doctor sighed. "Yes, those are definitely traits I see in both of you."

Seo laughed.

Cariolo just stood there. Fixed to the spot. No expression on her face.

"Oh, come now, Cariolo," said the Doctor. "Don't look so glum. Things get better for you, you know. I've seen your future."

"Don't call me 'Cariolo'," said Cariolo. "It's not my name." Her eyes remained fixed on Seo. "You _know_ it's not my name, don't you?"

"What do you prefer? 'Puppy'?" Seo was in too good a mood to let this get to her. She felt a little giddy, in fact.

Cariolo bristled. "You gave me my name," she said. "You should know it."

"I…" Seo frowned. She _had_ given herself a name — Seosyrae. But how would this younger-her know that? "How could you possibly know…?"

"You're supposed to be dead," said Cariolo. "The Shadow said so. He was very clear about it."

Seo's eyes went wide. "Oh. Oh, no."

"What?" said the Doctor.

"The Shadow!" Seo said. "Why didn't I think of that? He's here, on this planet. He must be."

Seo jumped to her feet.

"We've got to go," Seo told the Doctor, grabbing him by the hand and hauling him up. "Evacuate everyone. Once the Shadow sees what's happened, here, he'll send in the whole vampire army to wipe the planet out."

"No clues, no survivors," Cariolo agreed. "That's the Shadow's rule." She shrugged. "Except… sometimes, I like to keep a few treats to play with and eat, later. Keep them canned up and ready."

In a flash, Cariolo head-butted the Doctor into the far wall, grabbed the sonic screwdriver off him, and dashed outside. With a buzz of the sonic, the bulkheads slammed shut.

Seo ran to the bulkhead, trying to beat her younger-self to it, but arrived a split second too late. She thudded her hands down against it. But it was sealed fast.

"Canned up and ready," Seo repeated. "Damn her!" She spun back around to the Doctor. "We've got to get out of here. Sooner or later, she's going to come back for us… and you don't want to know what she'll do, then."

The Doctor caught his breath. "I take it this means you've reconsidered flouting the Laws of Time and altering your own past?"

"Well, it was fun, back when I could remember everything that happened and use it to my advantage," Seo said. She held her head in her hands. "But then… I guess I changed too much. Now, I can't remember a thing about any of this."

"Yep, that's what happens when you muck about with your own past," the Doctor said. "Who's this 'Shadow' person, by the way? Or can I guess?"

Seo frowned. "Guess? What do you mean, guess?"

"Oh, only that — turning into a shadow is something _you_ used to be able to do," the Doctor pointed out. "And considering where all your abilities wound up… I'm guessing your sire earned the name 'the Shadow' by using that particular ability to his great advantage. Hiding in shadows, then gobbling people up."

Seo stared at the Doctor.

Lost for words.

"You really don't remember me, do you?" the Doctor asked. "I know that _your_ doubling back on your own timeline would be enough to scramble your memories from around now, but… _my_ entering your early childhood should have made _some_ impression, at least."

"You entered my early childhood?" Seo said.

The Doctor shrugged. "It seems that, when I touched your hand, the Gem of Braxiatel interacted with the TARDIS and launched me back into your own past. All the way back to when you were a very little girl." He leaned against the melted control console. "Incidentally, your real name is very pretty."

Seo's face went even paler than it had been, before. "You know my…?"

"Of course — you told it to me," said the Doctor. Then, just to prove he really had been there, he repeated the name back to her.

Seo swore beneath her breath. "Doctor, if you tell anyone," she warned, "you've signed my death warrant."

She paused.

Then, drooping a little, added, "Although, to be fair… by sending you back into my past… I've already signed yours."

The Doctor frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"Nothing," Seo assured him. "Don't worry about it. Whatever happened, I'll undo it. Promise." She buried her face in her hands, taking slow, deep breaths. "Somehow."

The Doctor nodded. Thinking. "That Tevin came back, didn't he? The one who wants to kill me?"

Seo said nothing.

"And he told you something about where he got his marching orders from," the Doctor guessed. No surprises, there — Seo's father must have figured out that the Doctor had overheard their plans. "What else did the Tevin tell you? Did he mention your father and the Daleks?"

Seo shot her head up. "What?!"

"Ah," said the Doctor. "Or, perhaps… not."

"What do you mean, my father and Daleks?" Seo said. She stared at the Doctor, rising fear on her face. "Doctor, what did you see, in my past? What did you do to make my father hate you?"

The Doctor opened his mouth.

Then hesitated.

Remembered the kind, loving father, from Seo's memories. The one who loved Seo, and would never think of harming her, in any way.

Remembered the real father, scheming with the Daleks to experiment on his own daughter, callously discussing the death of Gallifrey, covering up for the Daleks, as they exterminated anyone who came too close.

What had Narvin told her? _Don't ask too many questions._

"Doctor," Seo said, stepping towards him. "What did my father have to do with the Daleks?"

"What? Oh," the Doctor said. "Yes. Right." And, on the spot, came up with a lie. "The Daleks kidnapped you. As a baby. Your father rescued you from them."

Seo looked the Doctor over, carefully. "My father… _rescued_ me? From the Daleks?"

"Absolutely," the Doctor said.

Seo said nothing for a long moment. Then, with a small smile, said, "It's very sweet of you to lie to me, like that."

The Doctor grimaced. "Ah."

"My father was a coward, Doctor," Seo explained. "I remember." She shrugged. "If I really was captured by Daleks, and you really were in my past… it's pretty obvious who actually did the rescuing."

The Doctor said nothing.

"Thank you, Doctor," Seo said.

Again, the Doctor said nothing. Instead, just turned his attention to the bulkheads, and trying to find a way out of this control room.

"No good," the Doctor said. "Deadlocked."

"They would be," Seo replied, heading over to the control console, to see if there was anything inside that she could use to help them both. "I wasn't stupid. Not even back then."

The Doctor began trying to change around the wiring inside the wall. "You know, I can tell that you're the same person. In some ways, you're absolutely the same. Of course, in others, you're completely different — but, still."

Seo hesitated. Then tried something on the control panel, to limited success. "Is that an insult or a compliment?"

"Just an observation," the Doctor said. "When is this, in your… her… timeline? During the Olitzitz War?"

Seo shook her head. "Oh, no. After. Long after. I was never this bad, during the war. I actually hesitated before killing small children, back then."

The Doctor pried open a second panel, on the wall.

"No, this is shortly before I killed all the other vampires and ran away," Seo said. "I remember — I was at my worst, at this point." She thought back. Tried to remember what was happening, at this point in her life. "The Shadow was always off, trying to find victims to sire. I mean, we'd lost so many vampires, during the war. We started at over five hundred, and wound up with… less than fifty… by the end."

The Doctor whistled.

"So… yeah," said Seo. "The Shadow was usually away, instead of hanging around to watch my back. The other vampires really hated how he gave me special treatment, all the time. So they waited until he was gone. And then… hurt me."

"I'm sorry." The Doctor realized he was getting nowhere with wall panel number two, and moved on to wall panel number three.

"Vyroneka was the worst," said Seo. "She was the Shadow's girlfriend. Any time she got angry at him, she took it out on me. Back before the war, the Shadow killed anyone who laid a hand on me — besides himself, of course. But after…"

"…with fewer than fifty vampires left," the Doctor concluded, "he couldn't afford to lose anyone."

"Exactly." A small smile spread across Seo's face. "Vyroneka. I really _enjoyed_ killing her. The way she writhed and screamed, before I…!"

The Doctor shot Seo a hard look.

"Not that I find murder fun, now, I mean," Seo amended, quickly. "Just… for her… back then…"

The Doctor sighed. "As I said. Sometimes, I really can tell that you're the same person." He tried rewiring panel number three, again. Then, frustrated, tried just kicking the bulkhead.

But, of course, all that did was give him a stubbed toe.

"I could have told you _that_ wouldn't work," Seo said. She rushed over, handed him some electronic gizmos. "Here. Use these."

"They're broken," the Doctor observed. "Useless."

"For electrical energy," Seo qualified. She raised up one of the pieces. "But it's perfectly set up to harness the angular momentum of an electron's spin. You know. Spintronics. And the best thing about spintronics is that it operates like electricity — but has the added bonus of conducting through an electrical insulator." She clanged her fist against the bulkhead door. "Like the insulator keeping this bulkhead shut."

The Doctor grinned. "Brilliant!" He began wiring those pieces in, as well. "You know, you really are clever. Almost as clever as me, come to think of it."

"Why, thank you, oh superior lifeform," Seo said, dryly.

The Doctor, however, clearly hadn't seen this as any sort of insult. "No, really. You are." He reached for another component. "Hasn't Narvin ever told you so?"

Seo laughed. "Narvin vacillates between sweet-caring-and-huggable, and arrogant-Time-Lord-you-just-want-to-slap. Sometimes, he tells me I'm a suicidal, senseless idiot. At other times, he says I'm staggeringly brilliant."

Her laughter died away.

And, for a moment, she just stood there. A component in her hand, unable to do anything except stare at it.

"Narvin," she repeated. Her voice very far away. "He told me… not to ask questions. And he tried to stop me leaving my ship behind, at the Dalek base."

The Doctor said nothing.

"The Daleks did something to me, when I was very young, didn't they?" Seo asked. "Something I don't remember. But, whatever it was… Narvin knows about it."

"Seo," the Doctor sighed.

"Maybe he even had a hand in it," Seo realized. She realized she was starting to hyperventilate, at the idea. "You don't think… he was involved in my childhood? You don't think… our whole relationship was just a charade, so he could keep tabs on me for some CIA project?"

"Seo," the Doctor said.

Seo looked up at him.

"You know Narvin better than I do," the Doctor said. "But I'll tell you that, when Narvin went looking for you in that Dalek base, and thought something might have happened to you… he wasn't just worried. He was _terrified_. And when he believed you were dead… he just about broke down. Wanted to murder all the Daleks that had done that to you. I had to work hard, to stop his grief from starting a war."

The hints of tears appeared in Seo's eyes.

"And, I'll tell you, for nothing," the Doctor said, "that if any harm comes to you, while I'm around — I _know_ Narvin will skin me alive."

The Doctor turned back to the door controls. Suddenly, got a flash of inspiration. He grabbed the component out of Seo's hand, made a few small tweaks to it, then shoved it inside.

The deadlock clicked.

And unlocked.

"Ha!" the Doctor said. "Look at that!"

Seo gave a sigh of relief. "Thank the universe." She rushed outside. "We've got to evacuate all the people on this planet, before…"

The Doctor caught her by the arm. "This is a fixed point in time. Remember? I'd say the best thing, now… is to get you back to the TARDIS."

"I've been to this planet, in the future," Seo said. " _No one_ survives. The whole planet is dead." She gritted her teeth. "And if I leave… then that's what I'm allowing to happen. That's what I'm doing to them."

"The longer you stay here, the greater the odds of you giving Blinovitch a run for his money," the Doctor pointed out. "Or haven't you considered what would happen, if younger-you decided to drain all the temporal energy out of older-you?"

Seo hadn't.

The thought semi-terrified her.

"All that time energy you've drained, Blinovitching over and over again," the Doctor went on. "Colliding and smashing apart — inside you, inside the time vortex, inside…"

"You've made your point, Doctor," Seo said. And, with a heavy sigh, gave in. "Maybe I can't take back my past, after all. Maybe that whole offer was a lie from the very start."

"Sorry… offer?"

Seo didn't explain. "Let's just… get out of here. Save President Romana. Stop the Daleks."

"That's the spirit," the Doctor said — although he couldn't help but get the nagging suspicion… that this was where the Daleks had wanted them, all along. "To the TARDIS!"


	38. Chapter 38

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last update for a little while. I'm going out of town and don't know if I'll be able to update during that time. I suspect not but you never know.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy!

Unfortunately, this was easier said than done.

The other vampires had arrived, and they were now swarming the planet. Everywhere the Doctor looked, he saw more and more.

"You said less than fifty," the Doctor pointed out.

"Less than fifty _Ancients_ ," Seo corrected. "The Ancients are the powerful vampires, who have their own minds and identities." She gestured around her. "These are Spawn — the lesser vampires. They're a lot easier to make, and a lot stupider. In fact, they're basically just undead animals, who know nothing except their own hunger."

"Charming," the Doctor muttered. He guessed that was part of the vampires' strategy: get onto a planet, create a bunch of Spawn, and let them eat up the world.

If younger-Seo preferred to do it differently… use a more hands-on approach… it was probably mostly for her own amusement.

"Eventually, I killed all of the Spawn, too," Seo told him. "Although, to be fair, that was considerably after I killed the Ancients, and it took a lot longer. Especially without super strength and things."

The Doctor shot her a sidelong glance. "I meant to ask about that. Your younger-self has super strength. But you…"

"When you give up drinking blood and time and vampire food," Seo cut in, "there are other things you have to give up, along with it. Super strength is one of those things."

"I see."

"Once upon a time, I could beat up the Spawn with one hand tied behind my back," said Seo. She grimaced. "Now… not so much."

Even if the Spawn were weaker or less powerful… they were still a force to be reckoned with. Carnage and slaughter was everywhere. Innocent people were screaming, as they were ripped apart. Some simply melted where they stood. Many were weeping, begging for help.

The Doctor, trying to make his way through it, was having a hard time stopping himself from rushing off to rescue people. And that was just _him_.

Seo, who'd clearly spent many sleepless nights agonizing over this, was getting completely torn up about what was happening. For all that the Doctor regretted walking away — Seo was completely beside herself.

"A lot more could die, if you don't leave," the Doctor insisted. "The whole fabric of the universe could fall apart."

"I know," Seo said. She forced herself to look away from the carnage. "I know! I'm going. I'm doing it. It's just…"

"Difficult," the Doctor supplied.

Seo looked down at the ground. "What can I say? I care about people. It's what separates me from her." She took a deep breath. "I know _I_ can't come back here and change things, Doctor." She glanced back at him. "But could _you_ …?"

She paused.

The Doctor wasn't there.

"Doctor?" Seo spun around. "Where…?"

"Get back to the TARDIS!" came his shout, to her right. "I'll be fine! Just get…!"

Seo spun around.

And saw the Doctor in the impossibly tight grip of her younger-self. Her hand now covered his mouth.

"He really does talk too much," said the girl, leaning towards the Doctor's neck. "Maybe I should turn him into a Spawn. Let him wander around, mindless, for all eternity. That'd be fun."

"Leave him alone," Seo demanded. " _He's_ the good guy. _I'm_ the scumbag. Pick on me, not him."

The girl bit the Doctor, in the neck.

He cried out.

Seo grabbed a rock off the ground and hurled it at the girl's head. It collided, and the girl hissed at her. But she stopped feeding on the Doctor.

"I knew he'd taste wonderful," the girl said, smacking her lips. "All that artron. It's divine."

The worst thing was… Seo could taste the residue of the girl's feeding, in the air. It was almost enough to make her remember… the way he had tasted.

And… oh! It was one of the most mouth-watering, incredible tastes she'd ever tasted. The Doctor wasn't just any old Time Lord — he had traveled _a lot_. Every single one of his blood cells was jam-packed with time and life and future.

Seo focused her mind.

Got herself back under control.

"If you kill him," Seo promised the girl, "I will kill you."

"No, you won't," the girl taunted. She licked the side of the Doctor's neck. "But… don't worry. I'm not going to kill him — yet. First, I'll have some fun with him. Then, when I do kill him… I'll make sure it's _agony_."

Seo clenched her fists.

It was hard to resist the urge to punch the living daylights out of herself, sometimes.

"What do you want from me?" Seo demanded. "I know you're just picking on him, to get to me."

The girl didn't answer that question.

Instead, she began to play with the Doctor's hair. "What can I do, before I kill him?" the girl mused. "How can I make his life hell?" She began plucking hairs out of his head. "Maybe I'll see how long he can survive in the vacuum of space. Maybe I'll try drowning him. Or maybe… I'll just keep cutting him open until the smell of his blood drives me crazy, and I drain him dry."

The Doctor finally pulled his mouth free from the girl's hand. "Seo, she's goading you. Seeing how far she has to push you, before you snap. Leave me. Get out of here."

"No, Doctor," Seo said. "She wants to hurt me. And she'll kill you and anyone else she needs to… in order to do it." She stepped forwards. Addressed the girl, directly. "You think I'm your mother, don't you?"

"It's your fault," the girl accused. "Everything that's happened — it's all your fault." She began throttling the Doctor. "And now, you've run off with some other guy, leaving me behind to…"

"Your mother is dead!" Seo shouted. "I'm not Myrum. She was… taller. Brown hair. Smaller lips." She gestured at herself. "I'm just a criminal. That's all. The Doctor's people caught me. He's taking me in for trial."

The girl frowned. Stopped throttling the Doctor.

"Then why am I important to you?" the girl said.

"I was trying to use you," Seo lied. "Manipulate you. I wanted to take you away from the Shadow and use you for my own ends."

"Seo, don't do this," the Doctor urged her. "She's going to kill me, anyways. Get out of here."

"There, see?" said the girl. "He doesn't believe you, any more than I do." She grabbed the Doctor to her, tighter. "I think I'll keep him around, for a while. He's a lot more honest than you." She gave him a cold, heartless grin. "And… a lot more fun."

"You were going to kill him, before I showed up," Seo pointed out.

"Yeah, well, I thought he was going to kill me," said the girl. "But, by now… I'm pretty sure he's not." She dug sharp nails into the Doctor's arm — sharp enough to draw blood. "Go on. One of you two. Hurt me. Cut me. Fight back!"

Neither of them did.

"See?" the girl said, a little proudly. "That's what makes you so fun! It doesn't matter what I do. He won't kill me or hurt me — and you…" She shrugged. "Well, you won't even touch me."

Seo was barely holding herself back, to be honest.

"So, no, you're no threat," said the girl. "You're just toys. Something to play with and then break."

"Someone to hurt, the way that you've been hurt?" the Doctor guessed. "All those tortures you described putting me through… how many have you been put through, yourself?"

The girl stared at him.

Speechless.

Seo just gave an exasperated sigh. "Doctor, seriously, don't make excuses for her. She's an evil, twisted, homicidal maniac. I acknowledge that. I live with that. I don't need excuses."

"I just think certain people should be aware," the Doctor said, "that even the most cruel, callous, and seemingly evil creatures might actually be acting out of pain and fear and desperation."

"Oh, really?" Seo snapped. She turned to the girl. "Why did you kill the Olitzitz?"

The girl shrugged. "Just because."

"But they rescued you from the Shadow, at the end of the war!" Seo said. "They felt pity for you! They wanted to give you a better life!"

"So?" said the girl. "What's that to me?"

"You're miserable!" Seo shouted. "You hate your life! If you hadn't killed them, they could have taken that away from you!"

"But that wasn't going to happen," said the girl, "because they had to die."

"But if you hadn't killed them…" Seo began.

"If, if, if!" the girl retorted. "Why do you keep saying 'if'?! There's no 'if'! The Olitzitz were a bunch of blue-skinned, time traveling bastards. I hated them. So I killed them. I _had_ to kill them. I was always going to kill them. There was never any 'if'!"

Seo's eyes flicked down to the Doctor. "See?"

"She's a child," the Doctor argued. "She doesn't know any better."

"She _should_ have known better," Seo replied. She stepped forwards. Addressed the girl. "If you have to kill me, just get it over with. But let him go. He's done nothing."

The girl's grip loosened on the Doctor.

For a moment, Seo thought she might have gotten through to the girl. Perhaps, by some miracle, the girl had decided to let the Doctor go, on a whim.

Then… Seo heard the voice, drifting through the wind…

And her blood went cold.

" _Him_ ," both Seo and the girl whispered, at the same time.

The girl let go of the Doctor, completely, and jumped away from him and Seo. Her hands were shaking.

"He knows I failed to destroy this planet, all by myself," the girl whispered. "He'll be angry."

"He knows who I am," Seo whispered. "He's after me."

The Doctor got back to his feet, looking between the two. He couldn't hear anything on the wind… but he felt the temperature drop, just a bit.

Without another word, the girl ran away and vanished into the midst of a crowd of panicked, fleeing people and ravenous, mindless Spawn.

Seo grabbed the Doctor by the hand. "TARDIS," she said, now without any doubts. "Before he finds me."

"Before who…?" the Doctor began to ask.

But it was a silly question, and he knew it.

"The Shadow," the Doctor said, answering his own question. "Your sire. The one person that both you and your younger-self are terrified of."

"He murdered my father, Doctor," Seo replied, dragging him after her, "kidnapped me, then had the audacity to claim it was a 'rescue'. He hurt me and said it was for my own good. Pushed me to live up to his standards and tortured me if I didn't make the cut. That kind of thing sticks with you, forever."

The Shadow… had called Seo's kidnap a 'rescue'?

The Doctor thought back to what he had seen, in Seo's past.

Hesitated.

"Seo," the Doctor ventured. "What if I were to tell you… that your father wasn't quite the way you remember him?"

Seo said nothing, for a long time.

"If you told me that, then I'd tell you… my father is dead," Seo replied, her voice low and quiet. "He died horribly. Twice. He more than paid for what he did. And… I like to think he regretted his misdeeds, by the end."

The Doctor blinked.

He hadn't quite expected this.

"You _know_ your father was…?" the Doctor began.

"Not a nice man?" Seo glanced at the Doctor. "Yes. I know. Of course I know. I grew up living with the consequences of his actions."

The Doctor frowned.

"My father was very kind — to _me_ ," Seo continued. "But… as for the rest of the universe…" She shook her head. "I don't know. I want to think he repented. But maybe that's just wishful thinking."

"And what if you found out that your father was using you?" the Doctor said. "Manipulating you? All those injections, when you were a child…"

"No," Seo cut in. "He wouldn't. Not to me." She shook her head. "I don't know what you saw in my past, Doctor, but my father was like a magician — everything he did was trickery and deception. Whatever you saw was just a trick. Not the truth." She took a deep breath. "He'd _never_ have hurt me. I'm sure. Not like the Shadow…"

She froze, in place.

Her eyes growing wide.

The Doctor tried to drag her forwards. "Seo, the TARDIS is just up…"

"I can't," Seo said. Her voice shook. "The Shadow. He's calling me."

"Calling…?" The Doctor grimaced. Of course — it was a rule, wasn't it? A vampire had to come, when her sire called her. "He's not calling _you_ , Seo. He's calling the younger one."

Seo shook her head. "He's calling _me_ ," she said. "I can tell. He's found me. He knows who I am." She released the Doctor's hand. "Get out of here. Run, while you still can!"

"It's rather too late for that, Puppy," came a voice from the shadows. A shadowy hand reached out and grabbed the Doctor, and the Doctor yelped, as gold energy poured off him in droves.

Seo charged at the shadows, angrily, but ran right through them. Unable to even touch the entity within.

"So it _is_ you," the shadows said. "Fascinating. A version from the future, who's come back into her own past."

The Doctor cried out, as the shadows gained more and more of a form. They gathered together to create a man, his hand on the Doctor's shoulder, gaining strength as the Doctor weakened.

"The real question is," the Shadow continued, "why did you come back through time with this interloper, instead of with me?" He glared down at the Doctor. "What has happened to you, by your time, to make you abandon me for him?"

"Let him go," Seo demanded, lunging for the Shadow, again.

"Stay, Puppy," the Shadow commanded.

And Seo found herself frozen to the spot.

"Interesting," said the Shadow. "You haven't been this easy to control, since I first rescued you from your father. You're spending most of your effort shielding your mind and memories — to make sure I can't see, from your thoughts, who this man is." His voice lowered. "Which confirms my suspicions. In the future… this man takes you from me. He destroys me."

"No," Seo said.

"What is he, to you?" the Shadow demanded. "What did he do?!"

The Doctor, through pain, shouted out the only words that he knew would save his life…

"Time Lord!" the Doctor cried.

Instantly, the Shadow pulled his hand away and stopped the time drain. He stared at the Doctor, who fell to the ground, weak after the attack.

"A Time Lord?" The Shadow leaned over, helped the Doctor up. "My dear fellow, why didn't you say, before? I do apologize."

Seo, stunned, couldn't speak.

Her mouth couldn't even form words.

The Doctor caught his breath. This was the hard part, of course. Because the Shadow had just confirmed all the Doctor's suspicions — suspicions that explained, perfectly, why Narvin had warned him (and Seo) not to ask too many questions.

"No harm done," the Doctor said. He could already feel himself regaining his strength. "Well, not by me, at any rate." He gestured at the planet, around him. "Is all this destruction really necessary?"

"I wouldn't do it, unless it was necessary," the Shadow replied. He shrugged. "Besides, you know the agreement — I help you win your Time War, and you allow me to carry out my own personal missions, unimpeded."

"You… know the Time Lords," Seo said, in a barely audible whisper.

The Shadow turned to her. "Well, naturally. Did I not explain that to you, in my future? How remiss." He gestured at the Doctor. "You see, Puppy, I know the Time Lords well. They are, after all, the ones who finally explained to me how, when, and where… I could hunt down and kill your father."


	39. Chapter 39

The Doctor couldn't even meet Seo's eyes, anymore.

Hers were too filled with hurt, shock, and betrayal.

"I'm sorry," the Doctor told her.

"Don't apologize to her," the Shadow said. "She knows her father was a monster. I've told her, often enough."

The Shadow stepped forwards and grabbed Seo, looking her over, carefully.

"So," the Shadow said to the Doctor, "it's happened, then. The Time War's finally started, and you Time Lords have borrowed her for the duration, just as we agreed." He frowned, noticing the bruises and cuts from Liantor's torture, on Rodia. He glared back at the Doctor. "Your people promised she would not be harmed."

"I'm trying my best!" the Doctor said. "But she has a tendency to wander off, on her own, and get into trouble."

The Shadow's glare fell, a little. "Yes," he admitted. "That's a problem I know, well." He paused. "And just why are you both here, anyways? If she's crossing her own timeline, there must be a terribly good reason for it."

"We were thrown off-course, actually, while fending off a Dalek battleship," the Doctor admitted. "When we crashed, here, she wandered off on her own. All we want, now, is to leave this planet, without causing too much more disruption to the timelines."

Seo just kept her eyes locked on the Doctor. "How… long have you known?" she whispered. "Does… does…?"

She couldn't say the name.

But the Doctor knew… she was talking about Narvin.

"Does he know?" Seo asked the Doctor. "Is he involved? Did… does…?"

"I don't know," the Doctor admitted to her. "I'm sorry." He sighed. "Very, very sorry."

Particularly because, after what she'd done to the Olitzitz, the Doctor was fairly sure he knew why the Time Lords had made this particular bargain with the Shadow.

The Shadow shook his head at Seo. "Now, Puppy. That's no way to address your new masters." He spun her around, to face the Doctor. "Tell the nice Time Lord that you're sorry you wandered off, and you'll follow all his orders without question, next time, and be a good little Time Warrior."

Seo didn't.

"How could your people do this to me?" Seo demanded, of the Doctor. "With all the hatred and evil the Daleks have spread, throughout the universe — how could _you_ do something like _this_?!"

What could the Doctor say?

How could he explain why, without confessing that her father had been assisting the Daleks? How could he explain it all, without admitting that her father had been genetically modifying her?

The Shadow twisted her arm, viciously. "Apologize to him," he demanded, ramping up the pain. "Like a good little girl."

"Sorry!" Seo said, through the pain.

"And…?" the Shadow prompted. "Keep going."

"And I'll follow all the Doctor's orders without question," Seo continued. "Promise."

The Shadow let her go. "Better." He turned to the Doctor. "I'm sorry about her. She may appear grown up, on the outside, but that's simply a quirk of the Aging Casket. Mentally, she's still just eight years old. I trust my future-self has been assisting you to discipline her?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed. "Don't do that, again."

The Shadow pat Seo on the shoulder. "She knows I only do it for her sake," said the Shadow. He pushed her towards the Doctor. "If you can keep her disciplined and focused, trust me — she _will_ win you the Time War. You saw what she did to the Olitzitz."

"I know what she did," the Doctor said. "And I know you should be ashamed of yourself — raising a little girl, specifically, to do _that_."

The Shadow just shrugged. "I feel no shame. Only pride."

"You've turned her into a monster," the Doctor said. "Physically and mentally."

"There was another Time Lord who chided me, like this, once," the Shadow mused. "He was something of a wildcard — a fighter, a justice-seeker, one who fancied himself the little girl's champion. He even threatened to take her away, if I did not stop disciplining her. Then, one day… he disappeared. 'Taken care of,' the others said." His voice lowered, his eyes predatory, as they stayed fixed on the Doctor. "Your people need what I have. So… whatever your opinions… I'd advise you keep them to yourself, Time Lord. Or you'll find yourself 'taken care of' — just as Narvin was."

Seo's breath caught in her throat.

"Heard and understood," the Doctor said. He took Seo's arm in his… and she was too numb to protest. "And, with that, Mr. Shadow, we must get back to the TARDIS. We have our own battles to fight."

He pulled, gently, at Seo's arm.

She didn't move.

"He knew," Seo whispered. "Narvin knew."

"And, from the sound of it, he tried to stop it happening," the Doctor whispered, back. "I'm truly sorry about all of this, Seo. But we have to go. Now."

Seo dropped her eyes to the ground. Unable to meet the Doctor's.

And, still numb, let the Doctor lead her away.

The Shadow waited, a moment, as they left. Then called over one of the other vampires.

"Follow them, Clawscraper," the Shadow said. "The moment the Time Lord opens his craft — let her enter, but drag the Time Lord back here. Gallifrey can always bring his craft back, themselves — if they really _did_ send her." His voice dropped to a growl. "But I smell a rat. And I won't let that Time Lord go, until he tells me everything."

"As you wish, oh master," said Clawscraper, as he departed.

* * *

"Time for my trial, already?" Narvin asked, as his cell door opened. "Someone must be in a hurry. Traditionally, these things always begin at…"

Narvin trailed off.

As he saw the group of Time Lords who had walked in, through the cell door. All pointing stasers at him.

"You," said Narvin. "I should have guessed. You did warn me what would happen, if the Nightmare Ring was destroyed." He stood up, spreading out his arms. "Go ahead, then. Kill me. I know you've been looking forward to it."

But they didn't shoot.

Narvin had known they wouldn't.

"Why did you bring the Doctor into this?" Parderax demanded, staser still aimed at Narvin's hearts.

"Why did I bring in someone nosy, who'd ask a lot of questions and get right down to the truth — especially if I asked him not to?" Narvin shrugged. "Well. I should think that's pretty obvious. After all… you haven't shot me, yet."

"The Doctor could bring down the whole operation," said Parderax. "He's impartial, so we can't discredit him. Unambitious, so we can't make a deal with him. And, according to his reputation, there's no chance he'd ever keep quiet about what he saw."

Narvin laughed. "As I said. Pretty obvious."

"You won't be laughing when the Daleks win the Time War," said Baria, the Time Lord to Parderax's right. His staser was also aimed at Narvin's hearts. "We warned you what would happen if you jeopardized the operation, Narvin. We don't make idle threats."

"And yet, you still haven't killed me," Narvin said. He glanced at each of them, in turn. "And I have a feeling… you're not going to."

"A temporary respite, only," said Parderax. "Once we've gotten the Doctor out of the way, we'll be only too eager to kill you. And don't think your Lady President will be able to stop us."

Narvin gave them a rather smug smile. "Once you've gotten the Doctor out of the way? So I'm guessing that, in the meantime, he's blundered into the middle of things, learned all your secrets, and revealed them to Seo. Who, I'm sure, is furious. She'll never trust a Time Lord, again — not even me." He leaned in. "So that's it. Game over. She hates me, and that means… you can't use me to control her, anymore. She's finally free."

"The Daleks have figured out that she's alive," said Owerto, the Time Lord to Parderax's left. "We can no longer disguise her temporal trace from them. So, while she may be free from _us_ — she isn't free from _them_."

The grin fell off Narvin's face. "I see."

"You will come with us, and undo your sabotage on the Time Scoop," Parderax demanded. "It's the only chance you have of saving her life — and the Doctor's."

"And once I do, of course, you'll be in the perfect position to kill us all," said Narvin. He paused. "Well, except her. You need her. But I imagine you may have more trouble erasing _this_ revelation from her memory, than you have all the others. It's probably made quite an impression."

They said nothing.

But they didn't have to say anything. They knew he'd come.

"Oh, all right, what's the use in dragging this out?" Narvin muttered, putting his hands behind his head, as he allowed them to lead him out of the cell at staser-point. "You know I'll never let her die. I know I'll never let her die. So there's only one way this can possibly play out, isn't there?"

"There always has been, Narvin," said Parderax. "Even when you thought you could stop us — there's only been one way this could ever play out."


	40. Chapter 40

"I really can't express how sorry I am," the Doctor tried to tell Seo, as they approached the TARDIS. "I only just worked out the truth, myself. If there's anything I can do…"

"Your people murdered my father and destroyed my life, just to turn me into a super-soldier for your war against the Daleks," Seo interrupted. "There aren't enough I'm-sorry's in the whole universe to fix that, Doctor. There never will be."

"I suspect it's rather more complicated than that," the Doctor began.

"Oh, is it?!" Seo snapped. She spun around, to face him. "You really are a race of immoral, corrupt jerks, aren't you?! Look around you, Doctor! Look at all this death! Look at this planet's destruction! _You_ helped make this. Your people gave the Shadow carte blanche to rampage through the universe!"

"Seo…"

"You dare accuse the Daleks of genocide, when you Time Lords do something like this?!" Seo went on. "How could you? What the hell is wrong with you?!"

"Seo, your father was voluntarily collaborating with the Daleks," the Doctor interrupted.

Seo froze.

Any remaining words stuck in her throat.

"I saw it," the Doctor said. "Back in your past. The Daleks wanted a way to destroy Gallifrey, and your father was more than happy to give it to them. Even if he had to sacrifice you, to do it."

"You're lying," Seo accused. "My father had his flaws, but he'd never partner with the Daleks. And he'd never hurt _me_."

"Mrs. Kaitlyn," the Doctor replied. "She disappeared, yes? After she saw your father, while he had 'company'?"

Seo said nothing.

"How about all those injections you kept getting, when you were young?" the Doctor continued. "All those times your father sent you away, so you wouldn't see who his guests were? Not to mention that your father was determined to kill me, despite the fact that he'd never met me, before."

"My father loved me," Seo insisted.

"Maybe he did — maybe he never actually intended to give the Daleks what they wanted, and it really was all a trick," the Doctor said. "But I don't think so. And, it seems, neither did Gallifrey."

Seo looked away. "That's no kind of excuse."

"No, it isn't," the Doctor agreed. "But I suspect it's the truth. If your father was working for the Daleks… well, it would make sense that Gallifrey would want to get rid of him." He reached out, and put a hand on her shoulder. "I really am sorry."

"And that's how your people justify sitting back and allowing genocide to happen?" Seo accused.

"No, I'm just saying…"

"Maybe Narvin had an excuse," Seo said. "It even sounds like he might have tried to stop this. Fine. But what about the rest of you?"

The Doctor wasn't sure what to say.

"You Time Lords put this situation into place," Seo said. "But when you had the chance to step in and stop the deaths and the massacres… you did nothing." She crossed her arms. "I've spent my whole life trying to make up for what I did, when I was too young and stupid to know better. What have you Time Lords done, to atone for _your_ mistakes?"

The Doctor said nothing.

"Exactly," Seo said. She stared the Doctor right in the eye. "So which of us is _really_ the lesser species, Doctor? Tell me that."

Then, without another word, she pushed at the already propped-open doors to the TARDIS, and marched inside.

The Doctor frowned.

Propped-open?

He reached out, and tried the door. Sure enough… it was unlocked. And it really shouldn't have been propped open like that.

"That's not right," the Doctor said. "I locked those doors, last time I left the TARDIS. So who opened them, before we arrived…?"

But before the Doctor could step inside, himself, he found himself grabbed and hauled away from the ship, his attacker breathing down his neck in a way that showed how ravenous the monster was for the Doctor's blood.

"Not so fast, Time Lord," said Clawscraper.

From inside the TARDIS, the Doctor heard a cry of alarm. Through the open doors, he could see Seo, inside, with her arms raised, backing slowly away.

"Her younger-self," the Doctor realized. "She saw me exit the TARDIS. She must have taken my key."

Inside the TARDIS, Seo was trying to reason with her younger-self. The Doctor could hear her, through the open door.

"…killing me would only hurt you," Seo was saying. "I know why you hate me — the Shadow will punish you for not destroying this planet, yourself, and that's my fault. But do you really want to base your whole life on hatred and revenge?"

Seo ducked, as a record player was chucked at her head. It slammed against the far wall of the TARDIS.

"I hate you," came the voice of her younger-self, inside the TARDIS. "You have to die."

The Doctor tried to break free, but Clawscraper wouldn't let him go. "You idiot, let me in there!" the Doctor shouted. "Can't you see what's about to happen?"

Seo tried to run out the door of the TARDIS, but her younger-self leapt over and blocked her way. The girl tried to grab her, but Seo darted away, before they made contact.

"We can't touch," Seo said, ducking another grab. "Shoot me, if you want, but if you touch me, this will get a whole lot worse!"

"I don't need to touch you," said the girl, "in order to kill you."

Seo's eyes went wide, as she realized… what was about to happen.

"No, don't…!" Seo tried.

The girl threw open her hands, and a burst of light shot through Seo, as her younger-self attempted to feed.

* * *

The moment the younger Seo attempted to drain the elder, the nearby Dalek battleship erupted into alerts and shouting and motion.

"ANOMALOUS READINGS DETECTED!" one Dalek announced.

"BLINOVITCH VARIANCE APPROACHING MAXIMUM," another added.

"TIME LORD SHIELDS AT MINIMUM," shouted a third.

A Red Dalek glided into the center of the room. "PREPARE THE TELEPORT. COLLECT THE SUBJECT. THERE MUST BE NO DELAY."

Outside, a Dalek shuttle docked with the battleship.

The Red Dalek spun around, to a wall screen. "ALPHA SQUAD TEN, REPORT."

"THE NIGHTMARE RING HAS BEEN RETRIEVED, AT AN EARLIER POINT IN ITS TIMELINE, FROM THE VAMPIRE VESSEL," said a Dalek from the shuttle. "MODIFICATIONS MATCH THOSE REPORTED IN PLEIADES BASE DELTA NINE."

"THE NIGHTMARE RING WILL BE BROUGHT HERE AND READIED FOR DEPLOYMENT," the Red Dalek commanded. "THE VITAL COMPONENT WILL BE USED, TO POWER IT. GALLIFREY WILL BE DESTROYED. THE TIME LORDS WILL BE EXTERMINATED."

"EXTERMINATE!" the Daleks chanted. "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

* * *

"What…?" said Clawscraper, loosening his grip on the Doctor, as the air grew thick with time distortion, around them.

"You idiot!" the Doctor shouted, yanking himself free. "Look what you've done!" He tried to run over and stop the feeding — but the time distortion felt like molasses, around him.

The girl began to cry out, in pain, grabbing her head and screaming. Seo, meanwhile, collapsed to the ground, out cold.

"What is going on?!" the Shadow demanded, appearing from the shadows, nearby. Then, catching sight of Seo and the girl, inside the TARDIS, shouted, "You imbecile, Clawscraper! Why didn't you stop this?"

He began to run towards the two, inside the TARDIS.

But none of them made it, in time.

The TARDIS shrieked, as the Blinovitch energy stripped its defenses away, allowing a squad of Daleks to suddenly appear in the control room.

"VITAL COMPONENT LOCATED," the Daleks announced. "SECURE AND RETRIEVE."

They shot at the girl and Seo, their extermination beams interacting with the Blinovitch energy and turning orange, expanding into a bubble.

Then, the bubble squeezed down around each of the figures, inside.

And the girl, Seo, and the Daleks… disappeared.

"What?!" the Shadow cried.

"Oh, no," the Doctor said, running inside. He yanked at the controls, trying to coerce the TARDIS into dematerializing and following the Dalek teleport. But the TARDIS was still shook up from the surge of Blinovitch energy that had just poured through it, and wouldn't move. "No, no, no!"

"Time Lord," the Shadow growled, standing by the double doors, his eyes furious. "You get back here, right now, and explain. Or else…"

"Or else what?" the Doctor said, casually. Then grinned. "Or is that just you trying to entice me out of the TARDIS, because you can't get inside without an invitation?"

The Shadow said nothing.

But he didn't come inside.

"I thought you might have trouble with that one," the Doctor said. His smile fell, as he tried to make sense of the readings the TARDIS was giving him. "They teleported her right into the heart of the Dalek ship. Yes, of course. The Daleks must have always wanted two of her. Why bother using some inferior replicant, when they could dip into her past and have two copies of the real thing?"

"Time Lord, if you don't get her back, I swear I will hunt you down across time and space and destroy you," the Shadow warned. "And your death will be sheer agony. I will wait until you are screaming and begging me for…"

"Oh, keep your hair on!" the Doctor said. "I'm working on it."

"Then work faster, damn you!" the Shadow shouted, slamming his fist against the outside of the TARDIS. "Your people promised this would never happen. You promised that, if she participated in your war, you'd keep the Daleks from hurting her!" His voice lowered to a growl. "But you never really cared about _her_ , did you? She was just a tool for you to use and discard, once you were done."

"I'm sorry?" the Doctor said, not looking up from his fiddling, at the console. " _We're_ only using her, for _our_ own advantage? You can talk. Why else did you kidnap her, if not to steal her powers and abilities?"

"Because I care about her," said the Shadow. "She's my family."

"Biting her in the neck does not make you 'family'," said the Doctor. "She had a _real_ family, once. A father, a mother…"

"Myrum," said the Shadow. "Her mother's name was Myrum."

"Oh, you remember that, do you?" the Doctor replied.

The Shadow shrugged. "Naturally," he said. "She was, after all, my wife."

The Doctor stopped.

Stared at him.

"That little girl…" the Doctor said. "She's… your…?"

"She is the last member of my family, still alive," said the Shadow. "My wife's daughter — by another man. A cruel, evil man, who performed immoral experiments on her."

"You're… her stepfather," the Doctor breathed. "Her _actual_ stepfather." He shook his head. "But… you treat her abominably! You call her a puppy. A pet! You bully her into submission. She's terrified of you!"

The Shadow crossed his arms. "It's easy to criticize my parenting techniques, Time Lord. But I doubt you could have done better, given my situation."

The Doctor felt he could hardly have done worse.

"She is the most important person in the entire universe, to me," said the Shadow. "And I will not let the Daleks take her from me! I didn't before, and I won't, this time!"

"Before?" The Doctor left the central console, heading towards the door. "They've been after her for a while, now, you mean?"

"I thought you would have known," said the Shadow. "It's why your people took such an interest, after all. Isn't it?"

The Doctor gave an easy smile. "Yes. Yes, of course. Just…"

"Except — you may be a Time Lord, but you're not like the others," said the Shadow. "They already _knew_ I was her stepfather. Just like they knew the Daleks wanted her. But _you_ did not."

"Ah." The Doctor stepped a little further away from the TARDIS door.

He was glad the Shadow couldn't enter without an invitation.

He only wished that the younger Seo had had the same restriction.

"Did Narvin send you here, to steal her from me?" the Shadow demanded. "That deranged lunatic, always shouting about child abuse and torture. Torture — can you believe it?! As if flaying her or starving her or locking her in a coffin for a few weeks was _torture_!"

The Doctor glared at him. "Isn't it?"

"If you think _that_ is torture, Time Lord," the Shadow said, "then you haven't seen the least of what I can do." He turned to Clawscraper, a small smile on his lips. "Do you remember what we did to Narvin, to show him what torture _really_ feels like?"

Clawscraper gave a cruel, gleeful laugh.

"Three days," the Shadow recalled. Laughed. "Yes. I'm not surprised his people never let him return. I'm just surprised they let it continue as long as they did. I think they wanted to teach him a lesson just as much as I did."

"Look, much as I hate to admit it," the Doctor said, "I'm actually on your side, right now. I'm trying to get her back, for you." He crossed his arms. "So. Enough with the threats and poorly executed intimidation tactics. You said the Daleks have tried to get her, before. Tell me about that."

"Why should I?" the Shadow said.

"Because, right now, I may be the only chance you have of ever seeing your stepdaughter, again," the Doctor replied. He leaned against the central console. "I've fought the Daleks many times, you know. And always won."

The Shadow hesitated. "You'll take her away from me."

"I'm a Time Lord," the Doctor replied. "We respect the Web of Time. If time says your stepdaughter stays with you — then I _can't_ take her away."

The Shadow thought, a moment longer.

"Besides, if I don't return her," the Doctor added, "my people will step in, and return her, themselves. They're sticklers about that sort of thing."

This decided the Shadow.

"The Nightmare Ring," the Shadow admitted. "The Daleks have been interested in her, ever since we collected the Nightmare Ring from the remains of the Olitzitz. And I've just had a report that the Nightmare Ring has been stolen from my ship."

The Nightmare Ring?!

Just like in the future. Just like in that Dalek base.

Oh, dear.

"So… they don't just want her," the Doctor said. "They want that machine. The Olitzitz's machine." He frowned. He may have blown up the Nightmare Ring in the future, but that hadn't stopped the Daleks from dipping into Seo's past, to collect the same machine, earlier in its timeline. "What's so special about _that_ machine, in particular?"

"The Olitzitz are a distortion of history," the Shadow replied. "An aberrant timeline. That Tevin bastard created it."

"What Tevin bas…?" the Doctor began. "Ah. You mean that little girl's father. The Tevin you killed."

"Don't ask me _why_ he created the Olitzitz," the Shadow continued. "I have no idea. But once the Olitzitz discovered time travel and set themselves up as gods across their galactic sector… odd things began to happen. The Olitzitz invented new temporal devices; ones that followed obscure and dangerous temporal laws. Your people suspected the Daleks were involved, in some way, and that this was part of a larger plan. They discovered that the dangerous temporal technology had stemmed from crucial scientific developments, made on seven different Olitzitz planets."

The Doctor had a terrible feeling he knew what came next. "And… the Time Lords told you which ones."

"Better than that — they gave me the spacio-temporal coordinates," said the Shadow. "I went into the Olitzitz's past and destroyed those planets, before the technology could emerge." He scowled. "That wound up starting the Olitzitz War. I suppose I can thank your people for that one; that war nearly wiped us out."

The Doctor was glad that Seo wasn't around to hear this.

He almost wished that he, himself, wasn't around to hear this.

"What does the Nightmare Ring do?" the Doctor said. "How did she use it to destroy the Olitzitz?"

"She made it seek out every Olitzitz, across time and space, and unravel their DNA," the Shadow replied, indifferently. "She could do it quite easily. After all, it was her father's fault that the Olitzitz became a temporal race, in the first place. They weren't really supposed to be there."

"Time pushed back against the timeline alteration, and she took advantage," the Doctor muttered. He frowned. "But that wouldn't happen with the Time Lords. We were always here. That machine couldn't even touch Gallifrey."

"But that's where you're wrong," the Shadow said. "The Nightmare Ring might have _begun_ as a simple DNA alteration tool, but after the war, I brought it onboard my ship. I tinkered with it. In the right circumstances, it could do… just about anything, now."

The Doctor thought back to the Dalek base, at the very beginning of this mess.

Remembered all that temporal scarring, left over from the Nightmare Ring.

"You made it a powerful temporal weapon," the Doctor realized.

"I made it a powerful temporal _device_ ," the Shadow corrected, "for my own, personal use. If your people want it, Time Lord, they can wait their turn. This one is mine, and mine alone."

The Doctor gritted his teeth.

Furious at himself, for not seeing this, sooner.

"It's not yours, at all," said the Doctor. "It's theirs. The Daleks'. They _wanted_ you to have it. They _wanted_ you to modify it! So they could use it, themselves, now!"

The Shadow shook his head. "Impossible. Only the Puppy can control it — and, at the moment, she has only half the psychic power she needs to do so, when the Nightmare Ring is in its modified form. Besides, she hasn't come close to crossing the threshold, yet. The Nightmare Ring is useless to the Daleks."

The Doctor spun back around. "What did you say? Half?!" He sprinted back to the door, remaining just out of the Shadow's reach. "But they have…!"

"…two of her," the Shadow realized. A spark of fear flashed through him, but he stubbed it out with a quick, "No, it still doesn't matter. She hasn't crossed the threshold."

"An energy threshold, you mean?" the Doctor guessed. "Ah. So that explains it. That's why you've been feeding her the life essences of as many people and planets as you can find — because certain abilities she has can only unlock at certain energy thresholds. If she hasn't absorbed enough temporal energy… she can't do as much. Can't alter as much reality."

"Yes."

"You've gotten her to the point that she can fix and unfix points in time," the Doctor recalled. "That's something of a feat. What's next, I wonder? What'd happen if she crossed the next threshold?"

"You shouldn't ask about the _next_ threshold," said the Shadow. "You should ask about the _last_ threshold. She'll need to drain something on the order of a fully populated galaxy, in order to cross it."

"Which is… an astronomical amount of temporal power," the Doctor said. "All the time from all those people! But what is it for? What is that final threshold?"

"What do you think, Time Lord?" the Shadow asked. "It's the one her father planted inside her. The one the Daleks want. The one your people want. The one that, using a device like the Nightmare Ring, could decide the outcome of your Time War."

The Doctor shuddered.

As he thought back to that machine, in the Dalek base… and suddenly realized… what it had been modified to do.

"Complete manipulation of time," the Doctor realized. "That's what you're after. Not just a way to travel through time… but a way to rewrite it to your design. Reality manipulation, combined with time travel." His voice shook, a little. "And that kind of temporal rewrite… would bypass a time lock."

Both Gallifrey and the Daleks had already time locked their histories, preparing for the war.

With the Nightmare Ring and Seo (after she'd passed that crucial threshold), either side could simply obliterate the other. No questions asked.

No wonder the Time Lords were willing to placate the Shadow, in order to get their hands on it!

No wonder Seo's father wanted to use it, to save his own people!

"Of course," said the Shadow. "And once she's rewritten time, I can use the Nightmare Ring to lock the new timeline into place and delete the old one. It's all quite simple."

"Simple? Simple?! It's all quite insane!" said the Doctor. "Don't you realize what you've done? You're handing over complete control of time and space to a bitter, lonely, resentful child! If she gets the chance, she'll wipe out the entire universe, before it was ever born. Purely out of spite."

He turned back to the central console.

"And Seo knows that," the Doctor said, as he finally managed to get his ship working. "Even if the Time Lords and the Daleks don't."

He slammed the doors shut, in the Shadow's face.

And dematerialized.

He remembered what Seo had said — _'All that slaughter and death… I won't let it happen again. I'll die, before I let anything like that happen, again.'_

He had a feeling… she was about to prove her point. Unless he could get there first, and stop her.

Problem was… he didn't.

Because before he had the chance, a black hole scooped through the center of the vortex, plucked his TARDIS out of time and space, and dumped it into a derelict space station.

Or… derelict-looking, on the outside.

Inside was an entirely different matter.


	41. Chapter 41

Seo groaned, as she woke up.

She pressed her hand against her still-throbbing head. It felt like someone had turned her inside-out, thrown her around a while, then tugged her right-side out and tossed her in here.

"What a nightmare," Seo muttered. "First Narvin and the Time Lords. Then the Daleks. And then…"

She opened her eyes.

Found herself in a transparent, ultra-strength plastene cage, lined with a flickering blue light of a force-field, with only an energy barrier separating herself from the other occupant of the cage, next to her.

The other occupant just eyed her with absolute loathing — and a touch of curiosity.

Seo recognized her cellmate, immediately.

"Oh, it's you," Seo muttered. "This really must be a nightmare."

The girl leaned against one of the walls of her cell. "You hate me," she observed.

"Bravo," Seo replied. She looked around herself, trying to find some way to escape. "I'm floored by your genius."

She began banging different parts of the cell wall, trying to detect any structural weak-points.

"You're supposed to be dead," the girl retorted. "The Shadow told me so. He said you died when I was a baby."

"Oh, for goodness sakes!" Seo said, turning on her. "I'm not your mother! Never have been! Never will be! Got it?"

The girl narrowed her eyes.

Wasn't sure she believed Seo.

"We don't have a 'mother'," Seo said. "We don't have a 'father'. We don't even have a brother, anymore! They died. They all died, a long, long time ago. We have a sire, who both loves and hates us, because he's still bitter about things that happened before we were born. And we have each other." She turned away. "And I'm sick of you."

"You're my sister?" the girl asked, with a frown. "But… I don't have a sister."

Seo didn't even bother to dignify this with an answer. "You're not supposed to be on this Dalek ship," she said, instead. "Neither of us are. The first time I met Daleks was in the late Space Era, during a sapphire heist."

"What are… Daleks?" the girl asked.

"Evil, hate-filled octopus aliens who wander around in pepper pot shaped armor, and who want to exterminate everyone in the universe," Seo said. Paused. Then, in a mutter, added, "And, apparently, they knew Daddy. Or so the Doctor says."

She heard the whirr of a Dalek approaching from nearby.

"Down!" Seo hissed, hurling herself to the floor of her cage, and pretending to still be unconscious.

The girl, frowning, imitated Seo, closing her eyes and lying still.

The Dalek glided into the room. It paused, beside the cage. Turned its eyestalk, slowly.

Seo almost stopped breathing, as its eyestalk fixed on her.

Then… the eyestalk swiveled back.

And the Dalek glided off, away from them both.

"You're afraid of it," said the girl, when the Dalek had gone.

Seo got up, off the floor of her cell. "Oh, yeah. Pure, unadulterated fear. That's a normal, healthy reaction to seeing a Dalek."

"Why?"

"Because, given half a chance, the Daleks will kill us," said Seo. "And they'll enjoy it — because, in their eyes, we're inferior lifeforms, so we _deserve_ to die."

As opposed to the Time Lords, Seo reflected, who simply saw you as inferior, and used that as an excuse to go back in time and change around your life so that you caused untold amounts of misery and pain.

Seo gritted her teeth.

Then calmed herself, and got back to work, trying to break out of her cell.

"They hate the universe, so they have to kill it," the girl reflected. She shrugged. "Makes sense."

"Yeah… just stop talking, now, okay?" Seo said, emptying out her pockets. She'd picked up some stuff, onboard the TARDIS, hoping it'd be useful. "The idea of rescuing you, at all, makes me feel sick. Hearing you say evil things, while I'm doing it… just makes me want to retch."

Seo examined her items, on the floor. Trying to think of some way to use them to get out of there.

"You're going to rescue me?" The girl examined Seo, carefully. Once again, trying to work her out. "But you know who I am."

"Yes."

"People only want to rescue me when they think I'm a cute, cuddly, harmless kid," the girl continued. "So why do you? Why don't you want to kill me?"

Seo said nothing. Instead, she began to use the bits and pieces she had to construct a plastene-cutter.

"I like your friend, the Doctor," the girl mused. "He's one of those guys who thinks he can make people better by just believing in them. I love screwing with people like that." She thought this over, an evil smile on her face. "I wonder what he'll say, at the end, when I destroy him. He seems like the kind of guy who'll have a great deathbed line."

Seo snapped her head around, to glare at her younger self. "You're trying to wind me up, again, aren't you?"

The girl beamed at her.

"Well, don't," Seo said, getting back to her work. "I've had a bad enough day, already, without you making it worse. And if I _don't_ rescue you… then my day's going to get a _whole_ lot worse. Mostly in the form of not-actually-existing-in-the-first-place."

The girl frowned. "Huh?"

Seo turned to the girl. Looked at her, dead seriously. "I can't let you fall into the hands of the Daleks," she said. "Not after what the Doctor told me. If you're part of some plan to destroy Gallifrey or the universe or… anything else…"

She looked away.

She could feel herself trembling.

"…then, well, that's what right hands are for," Seo said, finishing her plastene-cutter, and staring down at the razor-sharp edge, in her right hand. "Sacrifice."

She thought of all the worlds she'd found and rebuilt. All the people she'd met. All the friends she'd made.

All the planets she cared for and helped to grow. Her 'children.'

If she did this, Seo knew, she would wipe all those events out. Kill all those people she'd saved. Destroy all those planets she'd rebuilt.

But if the Doctor was right, and the Daleks had been working with her father since she was a very little girl, genetically modifying her to their own design…

"You're a tool for the Daleks," Seo said. "So am I. Whatever they're planning, it'll be ambitious, insane, and use a lot of power. It always does. But they'll route that power through the two of us." She attached her cutter to the plastene, and began to cut through it. "And I can't let that happen. Not with you."

"Why not?" said the girl.

"Because if the Daleks told you to destroy all life in the universe," Seo said, "you'd do it. You wouldn't even hesitate."

The girl perked up. "I can destroy all life in the universe?"

Seo finished cutting a hole on the plastene. "On second thought, don't talk to me," she said, taking out the plastene slice she'd cut. "Every time you open your mouth… I want to throttle you." She gathered the last few bits of kit she'd had in her pockets, and tried to fix them to the side of the cage, just where the structural integrity disappeared and she'd cut the hole. She poked her gizmo, a bit, seared her fingers, then shook them out and poked it, again.

Nothing.

She tried shaking it, a little, but the forcefield kept hoisting the connections out of place.

"Damn, damn, damn!" Seo said. "If I could just… wiggle it enough to get it solidly into place… we'd be golden."

"Wiggle?" said the girl.

"Vibrate," said Seo. "A sort of resonant frequency. Just enough to trigger a shockwave in…"

The girl with a sly smile on her face, brought out the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, and buzzed it at the spot where Seo had set up all her gear.

In a second, the whole cage shimmered, then expanded into the energy barrier and exploded, around them. Seo's device shifted herself and the girl fractionally, in probability — protecting them from the explosion.

Then shifted them back.

"I can't express how much I love temporal shockwave physics," Seo said, disassembling her device and pocketing the bits.

Alarms began to blare, around them.

Seo gestured at the girl. "Come, if you're coming." She began to run. "The Daleks will be here, any second. And, trust me, you really don't want them to catch you."

The girl tilted her head to the side, reflecting.

But still ran after Seo. If only because she was curious about just what, exactly, was really going on, here.

"And don't even think about killing me," Seo warned, as they ran. "Or you'll never get off this battleship, alive."

"I'm not going to kill you," the girl said, running after her. "Yet."

Seo gritted her teeth. "Stuck escaping the Daleks, with only you for company. Yes, this is proof, if ever proof were needed, that God really does hate me."


	42. Chapter 42

The Doctor emerged from his TARDIS, to discover the derelict space station was blinking with a large array of Time Lord computer banks and technology.

Standing in front of it all was a small group of about ten or fifteen Time Lords, pointing their stasers directly at the Doctor.

The Doctor raised his hands, with a sigh. "I should have expected."

"Grab him," said one of the Time Lords. "Don't give him access to his TARDIS."

Two Time Lords grabbed the Doctor, roughly, and dragged him away from the TARDIS. The rest encircled him, still pointing their stasers at him.

"So you're the ones who intervened in Seo's timeline, then?" the Doctor said, as they restrained him. "She's furious with you, by the way."

"Hand her over, Doctor," one of the Time Lords demanded. "We know you have her."

"Actually, I was just on my way to rescue her," said the Doctor. "From the Daleks. Not that you'd know anything about that."

"What?" came a shout, from behind the armed Time Lords.

The Doctor recognized the voice.

"Narvin!" the Doctor said, with a grin. "So you're here, too. As a prisoner, I'd hope… not as the man running things. That would break Seo's heart."

"Narvin began this group," said one of the Time Lords.

The Doctor winced. "I was afraid you might say that." He raised his voice. "I trust you have a good explanation for this, Narvin."

Narvin stepped through the cluster of armed Time Lords, surrounding the Doctor. He had his hands clasped behind his head, and another Time Lord was following, behind him, with a staser pointed into his back.

"Not a good enough explanation, I'm sure," Narvin said. He sighed. "The Tevin were locked away by Lord Rassilon, long ago. I'm sure you know that, by now."

"Oh, yes, that I know," the Doctor agreed.

"What you may not have known is that a few have found a way to escape their prison, starting several millennia ago, relative time," Narvin continued. "But all the Tevin who've fled their home world have been benign. Civil war refugees. Non-hostile." He grimaced. "All except… one."

"One who hated the Time Lords, and was perfectly happy to genetically modify children, alter timelines, and help the Daleks destroy Gallifrey, just so he could save his own people," the Doctor said. "Yes. We've met. I take it you didn't know he was Seo's father, when you acted against him?"

"I promise, Doctor, I had no idea," Narvin insisted. "Seo paints rather a different picture of him, when she speaks of him. You can see why I might have missed the connection."

"Go on," said the Doctor.

"What else can I say?" Narvin sighed. "I had just wiped out all records of the Tevin, on Gallifrey, to protect Seo. Now, one posed a serious threat. I had to act. I assembled a team." He gestured at the Time Lord who had escorted him over, at staser-point. "I told Agent Parderax, here, all about the Tevin, and placed him in charge of this project."

"And I can see how well that's worked out, for you," the Doctor said. "I imagine you tried to stop all this nonsense, once you realized what you'd done? That was, presumably, why these Time Lords left you at the Shadow's mercy for a few days."

Narvin coughed. "Yes. Well. I had to try."

Parderax charged up his staser. "That's enough, both of you." He trained it on Narvin's head. "On your knees, Coordinator."

"Yes, of course — this is the part where you kill me," Narvin said. He got to his knees, hands still clasped behind his head. "You do realize that, if you shoot me, there's no one left to rescue Seo? She'll be in the hands of the Daleks. There's no telling what they may do with her."

"With the Olitzitz gone and the Nightmare Ring destroyed," said Parderax, "there's nothing they _can_ do with her. The Daleks will kill her, and tidy up this mess for us." He gestured at the Time Lords restraining the Doctor. "You, too, Doctor. On your knees."

"You _know_ you can't kill him," Narvin sighed. "The Lady President…"

"…has taken a sudden downwards turn," said Parderax. "We expect she'll be dead in less than an hour."

Narvin stared at them. "Downwards…?" He shook his head. "No, she couldn't have! Unless…" He glanced at the Doctor. "Did you two do something to the Key to Time?"

"No!" the Doctor said. "Nothing!"

"Nonetheless, President Romana is very nearly dead," said Parderax. "And without her around to protect you two, there's no reason to keep either of you alive. You're just… inconvenient witnesses."

"Witnesses?" the Doctor muttered. Paused, thinking. "Yes, I see. Narvin placed a firewall around all Matrix records concerning Seo. Any other Time Lord records, he deleted. Since your crimes are entirely to do with her life, that means — any inquiry would find you completely innocent. _Except_ … if there were witnesses."

"Exactly," said Parderax. "I'm sorry you got caught up in this, Doctor. But I believe… this is goodbye."

The Doctor saw Parderax tense his finger on the trigger.

And blurted out the one thing he could say, to save his own life:

"The Daleks have the Nightmare Ring."

Parderax froze.

"You're lying," Parderax insisted. "You destroyed it."

"In the future, yes," the Doctor agreed. "But Seo and I were dragged into her own past. Back then, the Nightmare Ring still exists. And the Daleks have it."

Narvin stared at the Doctor. "You mean the Daleks have _two_ of her, now? _And_ the Nightmare Ring?!"

"Unfortunately." The Doctor turned his attention back to Parderax. "If Seo remains in Dalek hands, Parderax, all of Gallifrey will be at risk. Don't you see? You _have_ to let me rescue her!"

Parderax hesitated. Then gestured at the Time Lords, around him, to stop training their stasers on the Doctor. And, instead, train them on Narvin.

"In that case, Doctor," said Parderax, "you may still be useful. If, of course, we decide to act, in this matter." He met Narvin's eyes. "As for you, Narvin… what can I say? You knew what would happen, if you tried to stop us. Now, you've given Seo information she should never have known. We have no choice but to kill you."

"I wouldn't!" the Doctor cut in. Then gave a sigh of relief, as the others paused. "Look, it's simple. If you keep Narvin alive, it'll mean there's nowhere Seo could possibly run or hide — without, ultimately, revealing herself to you. If only to save his life."

Parderax looked between the Doctor and Narvin.

"But… she hates him, now," Parderax said. "Narvin told us so."

"Hates him? Rubbish!" The Doctor shook his head. "She's furious with him — that much is true. But she'll still run through fire to save him… every time."

Narvin gritted his teeth, frustrated. "Doctor, for once in your life, could you just _shut up_?!" He turned to the other Time Lords. "Look, the degree to which she utterly abhors me doesn't matter! If we don't rescue Seo from the Daleks, there's no telling what might happen. For Gallifrey's sake…!"

"If we rescue her, Narvin, it will be to use her and the Nightmare Ring to eliminate the Daleks," said Parderax. "Not to save Gallifrey. Gallifrey is not in any danger."

"I'm sorry?" The Doctor couldn't believe his ears. "Do you have any idea what the Nightmare Ring could…?"

"Yes, we do," said Baria. "I believe what Agent Parderax meant to say was… given her personality, and her connection to Narvin… Seo will not _allow_ Gallifrey to be in any danger."

The Doctor felt a chill come over him.

As he realized what they meant.

Narvin, clearly, did, as well.

"You're prepared to let her sacrifice herself," Narvin muttered, "to save Gallifrey." He squeezed his eyes shut, clearly reprimanding himself, inside his head. "Because she's a witness, too, now. And you want to get rid of her."

But the Doctor had gone one step further. "Romana's suddenly gotten much worse?" he verified. "Just now?"

"The Lady President is close to death," Parderax agreed.

"And all the other times Romana's gotten worse," the Doctor continued, turning to Narvin, "what was happening to Seo, at that point? Was it when Seo was in the midst of deadly danger, or in the midst of this adventure? Was it when the probability that Seo would die — or follow this course of events — went above a certain point?"

Narvin hesitated. "I…" He stopped. Then seemed to realize… the Doctor was right. "Yes. Yes, of course! That's what's killing Romana!"

"What is?" Parderax demanded.

The Doctor turned on him. "Oh, haven't you worked it out, Parderax?" he asked. "The empirical evidence is all around you! When Seo gets close to death, so does Romana. They're linked! If Seo dies, then Romana will die."

"But President Romana isn't just dying," said Parderax. "She's being erased from history."

"Because there's a temporal dimension to this, as well," Narvin said. He glanced at the Doctor. "You think that, at some point in Seo's future, she'll save Romana's first incarnation? Something like that?"

The Doctor thought about this. "Possibly," he said. "And normally, I'd say that was likely. But the Key to Time is involved. And that makes this much, much more complicated."

He finally managed to shrug off the Time Lords restraining him, and jumped to his feet.

"But as you said, Seo will never let the Daleks destroy Gallifrey," the Doctor said. He took a step towards Parderax. "She'd rather die than start a war."

"And if she dies… Romana will, too," Parderax realized. He stepped back, considering this. Trying to decide whether or not this would, necessarily, be a bad thing.

Narvin cleared his throat. "Of course, Doctor, you're forgetting that Seo knows how to manipulate temporal paradoxes."

The Doctor's eyes went wide.

As he realized…

"Oh, stupid, stupid Doctor!" the Doctor chided himself. "Why didn't I see that? She won't kill her current self. She'll kill her _past_ self!"

Parderax actually laughed at this. "Her past self?" He shook his head. "She wouldn't dare. The resulting paradox could rip space and time apart, and she knows it."

"It'd only rip apart time and space if you didn't know what you were doing," Narvin qualified. "And… Seo knows, all too well."

"The Genocide Law, on Earth, condemns certain kinds of criminals to full temporal erasure," the Doctor explained. "And this is how Earth does it — by manipulating exactly this kind of paradox. Knowing Seo, she'd have learned all about the process — just in case the authorities caught up with her, and she needed to find some way to escape or pull a sabotage. Trust me, Parderax, if she kills her younger-self — her entire timeline, past, present, and future… would all disappear."

"And if she does that," said Narvin, "Romana's timeline will disappear, as well."

"Which is precisely what we've been seeing!" the Doctor confirmed.

Parderax said nothing.

Still not sure whether or not this was to his advantage.

"If Romana's erased from history," the Doctor told Parderax, "you'll never be able to hide it, no matter how many firewalls Narvin's put up in the Matrix. You'll be up for presidential assassination, Parderax."

"And since Romana's presidency was the administration that banned torture, the mind probe, and the oubliette of eternity as a form of punishment for such offenses," said Narvin, "well… I'll leave you to imagine just how you'll be punished for such a crime."

Parderax hesitated.

Wavered, for the first time.


	43. Chapter 43

"What did you do?" the girl asked Seo, as Seo finished attaching a device to one of the security cameras.

"Scrambled the feed," said Seo. She began to run. "They'll still get the footage from the security cameras, be able to see us running away… but they won't know which camera it's coming from. They won't know where, on the ship, we actually are."

"Meaning the Daleks pursuing us… will go to the wrong place," the girl realized. "That's really smart."

"Don't thank me, yet," Seo replied. "It'll only be a few minutes before they figure out what I've done, and counteract it." She glanced back at her younger-self, running behind her. "I hate to admit this, but… I think I might need you to kill some Daleks, for me."

The girl's eyes lit up. "Really?" Then, with a hint of suspicion, "Why? I thought you were against that kind of thing."

Seo stopped herself short of saying, 'Because they remind me of you, and I really want to kill you, right now.'

"Yes, but I'm giving you the chance to do some killing — because I want something, in return," Seo said, instead. She spun around, facing her younger-self. Held out a hand. "The Doctor's sonic screwdriver."

Her younger-self reached into a pocket.

Brought it out. Looking between it… and Seo.

"Why?" the girl asked.

"Because, in theory, a sonic screwdriver should be ideal for unlocking things," Seo replied. "And I need to unlock a lot of things, very quickly, to escape."

The girl thought about this, a little longer.

Then, with a shrug, dropped the sonic screwdriver into Seo's hand.

"But if you try to kill me with it," the girl added, "I'll take you down, with me."

Seo spun back around, and began racing down the corridors, again. "I think that goes without saying," she muttered.

It took her a little while to find the Dalek security center. When she did, she unlocked it with only a burst of the sonic.

The door slid open.

"Go ahead," Seo said, gesturing at her younger self.

"ALERT! ALERT! IT IS…!" the Daleks began, swiveling around.

The girl spread open her arms, and drained the life out of all of them, in a matter of moments. She laughed, as she absorbed their energy.

"Oh, and… disintegrate the equipment, too," Seo said, gesturing at the security banks and computers. "Knock out all the cameras. That'll make sure…"

Seo trailed off.

As one monitor suddenly caught her eye.

"No," Seo breathed, racing into the room. The heat of the Daleks' death throes burned her skin, but she ignored it, as she ran to the monitor she wanted. "It can't be…!"

Then, the time drain extended to the monitors and equipment inside the room. And the monitor that Seo had been looking at… went dark. Then cracked and crumbled into debris.

But Seo still knew what she had seen.

"The Nightmare Ring!" Seo said. "Here! Onboard this ship!"

Her mind raced.

She'd thought that the Nightmare Ring had been destroyed — and she'd never have another chance to use it. But… here was _another_ Nightmare Ring.

She could try again.

"I can save the Time Lords' Lady President," Seo realized. "Change the Daleks. Fix the Key to Time!" She felt hope swell up, inside her. "I've got another chance."

"A chance for what?" said the girl, now finished with her meal.

Seo spun around, to face her. "Change of plan," she said. "You remember that machine you used, to destroy the Olitzitz?"

"The Dream Circle," the girl recalled.

"Yeah… until you used it, and now, everyone calls it the Nightmare Ring," Seo corrected. She pointed at the monitor where she'd seen it. "The Daleks have it. Here."

"And you want to use the Nightmare Ring to wipe them out?" the girl asked, with a grin.

Seo wanted to hit her head on something. "No, murder is your game. Not mine." She raced past her younger self. "I'm planning to steal it."

Seo ran out of the room, and into the corridors, not thinking to look back.

The girl didn't follow.

She lingered, in the security center, as Seo raced out. Then, when she was sure Seo was gone, she turned to one of the Dalek husks, nearby.

"You can wake up, now," the girl said, kicking it. "I didn't kill you. On purpose."

The Dalek's eyestalk illuminated.

Its gun stalk twitched, as it saw easy prey and desperately tried to shoot. But nothing happened.

"Aw, is the little baby unable to shoot me?" the girl taunted. She kicked it, again — just to show she could. "I left you alive, but weak. Too weak to fight back, run — or shoot."

The lights on top of the Dalek's dome flashed, as it spoke.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?"

"Answers," the girl said. Leaned in, closer. "What do you want with me? With her?" She pointed at where Seo had departed the room. "She says you want to destroy the universe."

"THERE MUST BE NO OTHER LIFE BUT DALEK LIFE," said the Dalek. "THE DALEKS ARE THE SUPREME BEINGS. ALL OTHERS ARE INFERIOR. WE CREATED THE NIGHTMARE RING TO AID US IN OUR EXTERMINATION OF INFERIOR LIFEFORMS."

"The _Olitzitz_ created the Nightmare Ring," the girl corrected. "Not you."

The Dalek twitched its gun-stalk, sluggishly. "WE CREATED THE OLITZITZ."

The girl froze. "What?"

"WE WILL USE THE NIGHTMARE RING TO DESTROY THE TIME LORDS," said the Dalek. "IT WILL BE THE ULTIMATE WEAPON OF THE DALEKS."

"And you need me to operate it?" the girl guessed. She leaned down, to stare straight into the Dalek's eyestalk. "You know… that Seo woman is going to steal it."

"INCORRECT," said the Dalek. "SHE WILL HELP FOCUS THE MACHINE."

That was interesting. The girl hadn't realized that anyone except she, herself, could do that.

"Seo will never let you do that," said the girl. "Trust me, I've seen her in action. She might _seem_ like one of those wussy, love-and-compassion types, but she's smart and determined. She'll beat you, somehow."

"SHE CANNOT DEFEAT THE DALEKS," the Dalek said. "SHE IS AN INFERIOR LIFEFORM."

"But that's just it," said the girl. "She _is_ inferior. But not to you. To _me._ "

She heard Seo call out, and knew… it was only a matter of time, before she came back here.

"So… I'll stop her stealing the Nightmare Ring," the girl whispered to the Dalek, "and will even focus and control it, for you. If you do something for me."

"WHAT?"

"Hand her over to me, when you're done with her," said the girl. "Give me the ability to track down everything she loves and protects, and wipe it out. I want to ruin her life, piece by piece." She shuddered. "There's something… wrong about her. I can't stand it. She gives me the creeps."

The girl heard footsteps, right outside the door.

She leapt to the other side of the security center, pretending to be obsessed with something inside the debris of the security banks.

Seo poked her head through the door. "What have you been doing in here?" She stormed in, analyzing the surroundings, carefully. "Just what are you up to?!"

The girl looked up, feigning innocence. "I'm just trying to get off this ship. Same as you."

Seo reached out to grab the girl and yank her along, behind… but stopped. Reconsidered.

And dropped her hand.

"You first," Seo demanded, pointing out the door. "And if you try anything, just know… I have the power to make sure you were never even born." Her voice lowered. "Don't make me use it."

The girl frowned. Thinking.

"Now, go," Seo ordered. "Escape pod bay. I'm getting you off this ship if it kills me."

"I thought you wanted the Nightmare Ring," said the girl, heading towards the door.

Seo sighed. "I said I was getting _you_ off this ship," she replied. "I never said what I'd do, myself, once you were gone."

They left the security center.

The Dalek waited until they were gone. Then, with the flash of lights on his dome, he grated out:

"TERMS ACCEPTABLE."


	44. Chapter 44

The girl watched, as Seo carefully went through the Dalek ship. Fiddling with everything she could find, to give the Daleks false signals, false alarms, and numerous distractions.

"They can't see us," said the girl. "We already destroyed the security center."

"The Daleks always have a plan B," Seo replied, as she finished rewiring a wall panel. She shut it. "Come on. The escape pods are just down here."

She turned away, for a second.

The girl took advantage, snuck over to the wall panel, and undid everything that Seo had done.

She'd been doing this, ever since the security center. Carefully undoing everything that Seo had done.

"Are you coming?" Seo said, spinning around.

The girl had already finished undoing Seo's sabotage. She pretended she was just lingering behind because she'd gotten distracted by something.

"What? Oh, yeah," said the girl. "Coming."

Seo narrowed her eyes.

But kept the girl in sight, as she led them down the corridors of the Dalek ship.

"Where is the Nightmare Ring?" the girl asked.

"I don't know," Seo replied, in a whisper. She snuck forwards, to check for Daleks, down a bend in the corridor. Then glanced back, and gestured for the girl to follow her. "I haven't had a chance to look, yet."

"We can find it together," the girl proposed. "I can help you."

Seo sighed. "You didn't honestly think that'd work on me, did you?"

The girl shrugged.

"Give me a little credit," said Seo. "I'm not a complete…"

"PRISONERS LOCATED!" shouted a Dalek, turning into the corridor, behind them. "HALT! HALT! OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

"Run for it!" Seo shouted, sprinting away from the Dalek.

The girl ran, behind her. "But they said if we ran, we'd be…!"

"If they didn't need us alive," Seo replied, eyes scanning the corridor for somewhere she could turn into, "we'd already be dead."

The Dalek shot at them.

Seo and the girl both dove out of the way, and Seo used the sonic to activate an emergency bulkhead, behind them, blocking them off from the Dalek.

"PRISONERS LOCATED!" came another Dalek voice, from the other end of the corridor, in front of them. "YOU ARE A PRISONER OF THE DALEKS. SURRENDER, OR YOU WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

Seo slammed down another bulkhead, in front of them.

Sealing them in between the two bulkheads.

"But… we're trapped!" said the girl.

"Yes, we are," Seo replied. "But we're still alive, and — at the moment — that's good enough for me." She gestured at the girl. "I'm guessing you won't kill these Daleks, if I release the bulkheads. After all, that'd probably blow your little collaboration scheme, huh?"

The girl blinked. "What are you…?"

"Oh, come on, it was pretty obvious!" Seo snapped. "You've been undoing everything I've done, since the security center. And I can only imagine you've been shuffling your feet, just to make sure the Daleks could catch up with us." She crossed her arms. "I'm sure you're planning to turn on them, the moment they give you what you want. So… out with it. What do you want?"

The girl said nothing.

"It's something to do with the Nightmare Ring, isn't it?" Seo said. "I can't imagine why you want to get your hands on it, but if you've got some twisted idea about wiping out all life in the universe, you'll be…"

"It's so I can destroy _you_ ," the girl cut in.

Seo stopped.

Stared.

"What?" Seo whispered.

"There's something wrong about you," said the girl. "You make my skin crawl. Like you… just… shouldn't be." Her eyes narrowed. "And then you talk to me like I'm some stupid little kid, with your I'm-so-superior stare and your I'd-never-dirty-my-hands-with-any-of-this stuck uppedness. But I can tear apart your whole life. Kill everyone you love. Destroy everything you know."

Seo threw her hands up, in frustration. "Oh, this is ridiculous!"

"I've killed more people than you've ever even seen!" the girl shouted. "I've destroyed whole species without a second thought! I wiped out the Olitzitz! I decimated the…!"

"I know!" Seo shouted, back. "Of course, I know! I did it, too!"

" _You're_ the weakling!" the girl continued. "Not me! _You're_ the inferior…!" She stopped. Frowned. "What do you mean, you did it, too?"

Seo sighed.

And, resigning herself to the consequences, finally laid all her cards on the table.

"I'm you," Seo said. "From the future. I'm who you become."

The girl shook her head. "Don't be stupid."

"And I know you think that's impossible," Seo said, "because you think you don't have a future. But you're wrong." She leaned against the back-most bulkhead. "Things do get better. Eventually. One day, you'll find happiness. Friends. Love. A real life." She gave a small laugh. "One day, you'll give up being a monster… and choose to be me."

"That isn't possible," the girl insisted. "There isn't anything for me, in the future. Nothing but this."

"Oh, yes, I know that's how you feel, now," Seo replied. "I remember. You hate your life — but you've lost any hope that it can change." She toyed with the sonic screwdriver, in her hand. "And yet… here I am."

The girl shook her head.

This was impossible. It _had_ to be impossible.

There was no future. She knew that. The Shadow had seen to that. There was nothing to look forward to, no hope — because the future held nothing but this. This emptiness. This hopelessness. This loneliness and pain and pointless existence.

She'd resigned herself to that.

But…

If there _was_ a future…

If things could get better… if she had a _choice_ …

Then life _wasn't_ just a directionless, pointless trudge through a universe she hated. Life had a point to it. Actions could have consequences. And that meant… everything she'd done…

All the people she killed…

Did that have consequences, too? Did it… mean something?

"No," the girl decided, trying to tear the terrifying thoughts from her head. "You're not me. You can't be. You're lying."

Seo began reaching into her pockets, and bringing out items she had taken from the different wall panels and machines she'd been sabotaging, across the Dalek ship.

"I mean… you don't even look like me!" the girl insisted.

Seo began piecing all the items together. Still ignoring the girl beside her.

"No," the girl said, as way too many things started to make sense. The hatred, and yet, the way Seo wouldn't kill her. The way the Doctor felt sorry for her. The way everything went crazy, when she tried to drain Seo — and time tasted blechy and yucky, like the taste of paradox. "No, no, no! It's a lie! It's all a lie! It _has_ to be!"

"You know it's not," said Seo. She finished piecing together the components. "If you hand me over to the Daleks, the only person you'll be hurting… is yourself."

Seo finished her contraption.

Stepped back.

"The Daleks will override these bulkheads, soon enough," Seo said. She got out the sonic screwdriver, pointing it at the contraption. "But sonic shockwaves have just the same unusual properties as normal shockwaves. And since these bulkheads are air-tight… by manipulating a sonic shockwave… I can tear this ship apart."

"Flinging us out, into space," the girl realized. "While we're trapped in here. Turning this small section of the ship into a mini-escape pod."

"At which point, I can signal someone to pick us up," said Seo. She shrugged. "And that won't be a problem. I've got lots of time traveling friends. Even if the Doctor's tied up, I'm sure my friend, Danyul Wier-Chen, would be more than happy to drop by and say hello. It's not like he's got a lot else to do, since he got in trouble with the Director of THQ, last week."

"If you're so sure this'll work," the girl challenged, "then why haven't you done anything, yet?"

Seo hesitated.

The girl gave a cold smile. "It's the Nightmare Ring, huh? Shattering the ship means you'll break it."

Seo still didn't trigger the detonation.

The Nightmare Ring _had_ been broken in the future, Seo remembered. But it hadn't been broken like _this_. Not shattered apart.

What had Narvin said?

Something about how whatever caused this must have been a monumental temporal force, a kind of unstable temporal shockwave rippling through it…

Oh.

Oh, no.

Seo had a terrible feeling she knew what had broken the Nightmare Ring. And what it meant she'd have to do, now, to close the paradox.

"Why do you want that Nightmare Ring thing, anyways?" the girl said.

"To stop a war," Seo replied. She wanted, so much, to detonate the explosive device she had built, so she could get to safety. But she'd seen the future. And she knew she couldn't. "Don't ask what war. You'll find out, soon enough, when you become me."

"I'm not you!" the girl snapped. She dove in, and grabbed up the device. "You're a trick. A trap! The Doctor made you, didn't he? Like some ghost-of-the-future thing, to trick me into looking weak by not killing people!"

"Put that thing down," Seo demanded. "You don't know what you're doing."

"I know exactly what I'm doing," the girl said. She started tearing the contraption to pieces. "I'm handing you over to the Daleks. Cause they're my _real_ ticket to a better future. Not _you_ , with your… consequences and your meanings and your fake hope! Just them!"

Seo ran at the girl, trying to stop her and save the contraption — but the girl was faster, and ducked and darted out of the way.

"When they hook me up to the Nightmare Ring, I'm not going to do what they want!" the girl bragged. "I'm gonna turn it against them. Wipe them out — and wipe _you_ out — and take their place as masters of the universe. That's my future! Not becoming _you_! Not dealing with _consequences_! Just becoming the new Daleks!"

Seo made another grab for the contraption, but her younger self threw the remains in her face — hard enough to draw blood and shove Seo back, under the force. As Seo stumbled to her feet, the girl slammed her foot down on each of the components she'd torn out of the contraption, pulverizing them.

"What are you gonna do, to stop me?" the girl taunted. "Touch me? Wait, I forgot! You can't!"

"You can't _become_ the Daleks!" Seo insisted, trying to think up another escape plan. "That's insane!"

"What? You think I'm too stupid or powerless?" the girl demanded. "You think I'm just some nobody, playing around and killing planets because my life is pointless and miserable and I've got nothing better to do?" She stomped her foot against the ground. "I'm tired of being the pet! I'm tired of everyone always looking down at me! I'm sick of Vyroneka making my life hell, just because I'm an easy target. I'm sick of Bloodhook trying to sucker punch me, whenever the Shadow isn't around, and just expecting me to take it. And I'm fed up with Nightkiller petting my head and calling me a 'good little puppy' whenever I devastate a planet."

Seo squeezed her eyes shut, with a long sigh.

" _I_ should be the supreme being!" the girl shouted. "Not the Shadow! Not the other Ancients! Not even the Daleks! Just _me_!"

Seo said nothing.

"I'm not a puppy!" the girl shouted, again. "I'm not an animal!"

"No, you're a child," Seo said. "A very angry, very bitter child. The little girl who never grew up." She shook her head. "That's why you can't accept I'm you. You want me to be your future — more than anything. But you don't have the emotional maturity to deal with it."

"You're not me!" the girl screamed. She grabbed a sharp, pointy piece of the contraption she'd destroyed. "You'll never be me! I'll kill you!"

Seo barely managed to duck out of the way, before the girl stabbed her. She rolled along the floor, and popped up on the other side.

"But some day — you _will_ be able to deal with it!" Seo said, trying to find some weapon, from the wreckage of her contraption, with which to defend herself. "And it's worth the consequences and the guilt — just to finally have friends and be happy and make the universe a better, happier place."

"Happiness doesn't even exist," the girl retorted, lunging for Seo, again — who jumped out of the way. "It's a lie. A conspiracy! No one's happy, they just _pretend_ they are when they're around me, so they can rub my sucky life in my face! They _have_ to die."

She lunged at Seo, a third time. But Seo whipped out the sonic screwdriver, at just the right moment, and buzzed it at the girl's hand. The pointed shard turned red hot, under the sonic's vibrations, and the girl cried out — and dropped it.

That was when the Daleks finally overrode the bulkhead deadlock.

The bulkheads around Seo and the girl swished open.

Daleks now surrounded them on all sides. Ready to exterminate at a moment's notice.

"HALT! HALT! DO NOT MOVE!" the Daleks commanded.

Seo tried to use the sonic screwdriver on the fire alarm, to distract the Daleks, so she could make a run for it. But before she could, the Daleks shot her.

"EXTERMINATE!"

The Dalek blast seared through Seo's body, ripping a cry of pain from her throat, as every muscle flared with fire, then… went numb.

She found herself crumpling to the floor, unable to stand. Unable to even feel her feet and legs, anymore.

"PARALYZATION RAY SUCCESSFUL," said the Dalek who'd shot her. "DEPLOY SPECIAL WEAPONS DALEK TO TRANSPORT THE PRISONER."

A Dalek equipped with special claws and clamps emerged, and grabbed Seo up.

The girl just looked on, with contempt.

"See? You _can't_ be me," the girl said. She crossed her arms. "I'd never go down that easily."

Seo tried to struggle, but still couldn't. All she could do, she realized… was talk.

"The Daleks are never going to give you what you want," Seo warned her younger-self. "They'll go back on their promise. They always do."

The girl just shrugged. "If _I_ don't kill you… then _they_ will. Either way, you die. And I win. Because you are not my future." She turned to the Daleks. "Lead on. I'm gonna enjoy seeing the Nightmare Ring, again."

Seo's breath came too quickly. This was it. This was the string of events that created the future she'd seen.

This was the beginning of the end of her life.


	45. Chapter 45

Finally, Parderax lowered his staser.

He muttered to Owerto, the Time Lord beside him. And Baria — the Time Lord after that. The three discussed, in hushed voices, what they should do.

"Thank you, Doctor," Narvin said. "That's got them thinking."

And it had bought them a little bit of time, at least.

But it still didn't solve the bigger problem.

"We have to rescue Seo from those Daleks," the Doctor muttered, to Narvin, helping him to his feet. "They're planning to use her to break Gallifrey's time lock."

"I doubt they'll have time for that," Narvin muttered back. "To do it, the Daleks would have to force-feed her a small galaxy. Gallifrey will send in a fleet of Battle TARDISes to wipe the Dalek battleship out, long before they've gotten her to the proper energy threshold."

"Ah." The Doctor cringed. "Which will, of course, start the war."

"Precisely."

"As well as killing both versions of Seo," the Doctor continued, "and, as a result, wiping out a good chunk of Romana's timeline."

"Yes."

The Doctor spun around, heading for the TARDIS. "In that case… I'm not hanging around, here, any longer."

The energy hum of stasers getting ready to fire, around them, made the Doctor pause.

"You're not going anywhere," Parderax said. "We haven't decided what to do with you, yet."

The Doctor charged towards him. "For Rassilon's sake!" he shouted. "You're about to start a war! Don't you care?"

Narvin scoffed. "Of course they care, Doctor. They _want_ it to happen." He gestured at them. "If there's no Time War, they'll be known as the Time Lords who started the Olitzitz War and gave the Ancient Enemy the ability to perform countless genocides — while they sat back and did nothing."

"A Time Lord's place is to observe, and never interfere," said Owerto. "We merely… observed the genocides. It was not our place to interfere."

"Even though you caused them," the Doctor pointed out.

"Naturally," said Baria.

The Doctor felt this didn't even dignify a response.

He was disgusted by it.

"And, of course, if the Time War _does_ break out," Narvin continued, "they'll be seen as heroes. Their manipulation will be seen as foresight. After all… they can break the Daleks' time lock."

"We _are_ heroes, Narvin," said Parderax, stepping towards him. "We're the heroes of Gallifrey — and you are its traitor." He gestured at his men. "Let the Doctor go. But keep Narvin here."

Two Time Lords stepped forwards, to physically restrain Narvin.

"You will go to the Dalek ship, Doctor," Parderax commanded. "You will retrieve both Seosyrae and the Nightmare Ring, and return them to us."

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "Oh? And what's to stop you killing Narvin, while I'm gone?"

Parderax just shrugged at the Doctor. "Nothing, of course. We _want_ to kill him. He's the greatest threat to all our plans."

"Alien-loving piece of filth," Owerto spat at Narvin.

Baria gave Narvin a cruel smile. "But don't worry, Narvin. We'll look after her, once you're gone." His voice turned cold. "We'll give your little Puppy _exactly_ what she deserves."

Narvin, with a roar of anger, tried to rush them, but the Time Lords restraining him yanked him back and forced him to the ground. Narvin gave a grunt, as he smacked, hard, into it.

"Don't you dare," Narvin hissed, through his teeth. "She _isn't_ a puppy! You have no right to…!"

"We have every right," said Parderax. "We made her the soldier she is, Narvin. We can do what we like with her."

"She _rejected_ that life," Narvin snapped. "And I won't see you force her back into it! It made her lonely, depressed, and miserable." He glared at Parderax. "You'll harm her over my dead body, Parderax."

Parderax laughed. "That _was_ the idea."

Narvin seethed.

"You're such a lovesick little fool," Parderax reprimanded. "So caught up on her feelings and her happiness! Look at her, objectively. She is the perfect soldier for a Time War. She _will_ fight for us — whether she wants to or no. It doesn't matter how she _feels_ about it."

The Doctor crossed his arms. "And just what makes you think I'll help you with this insane little scheme of yours, after everything you just told me?"

"Because it's your only chance to save President Romana," said Baria.

The Doctor said nothing.

"There's no point in dragging this out, Doctor," Parderax said. "We know Romana is your friend. We know you don't have any choice in the matter."

"Perhaps _he_ doesn't, Agent Parderax," came a voice, nearby. A door opened, incongruously, in the side of one of the computer banks, and President Romana stepped out, to face the group of Time Lords. "But I rather think _I_ do."

She gestured at the chancellery guard, who emerged from the same computer bank, and surrounded Parderax and the others.

Through the door, the Doctor could see that the computer bank was not a computer bank, at all.

It was a TARDIS.

Parked there, this whole time. Observing.

"Romana!" the Doctor cried, delighted. "I thought you were dying."

Romana cringed, as she began to fade out of reality. She looked suddenly so much weaker, so much more fragile than she'd been, the last time the Doctor had seen her. She could barely stand.

That meant… it was no exaggeration.

Romana really was about to die.

She caught her breath, as she stabilized. "Yes, well, dying or not, I still have my duty." She almost fell over, but managed to steady herself. Her skin was pale and covered in sweat, as she headed over to Narvin. "Thank you, Coordinator. I overheard all I needed to. Your cooperation in this matter will all be taken into consideration, at the trial."

"Lady President?" Narvin asked, as the chancellery guards stepped in, and took over from the other Time Lords holding him.

"And, of course, your other condition will be met," Romana added, "as we have already agreed. All charges against Seosyrae have been dropped."

Narvin gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you, Lady President. It's more than I deserve."

"You can't arrest us," said Parderax, as the chancellery guard disarmed him. "We've done nothing wrong!"

"There's no use in denying it, Agent," said Romana. She gestured at the computer bank, trying to stop her hands from trembling, through sheer stubborn force of will. "I overheard the whole thing, in my TARDIS. You and your associates will stand trial for genocide — that which you have committed, that which you intended to commit, and that which you manipulated others into committing on your behalf. And, with Narvin's help, we'll soon have all the evidence the Matrix can provide, on the matter, as well."

"The Matrix data will prove, without a doubt, that Coordinator Narvin started all of this," said Parderax. "He's to blame. Not us!"

"He'll be on trial for genocide, as well, Parderax," said Romana. "No one is above the law. Not even the Coordinator of the CIA." She cringed, again, as she nearly fell over, her form wavering in and out of reality. She looked even paler and more fragile than her last attack.

The Doctor spun around, and ran to his TARDIS. "I have to stop this," he said. "Before it gets any worse, and Romana doesn't stabilize."

Romana stabilized, noticed the Doctor, and raced forwards — with a speed the Doctor had not expected of her, in this condition. "Yes, indeed," she said. "And I'm coming with you."

The Doctor did a double-take. "Romana? But you're…!"

"Dying is hardly the same as dead," Romana replied. "And I refuse to go out without a fight." She stumbled, as she approached his TARDIS. Put out a hand, against the door, to steady herself. "Doctor, Narvin told me that Seo recovered the Key to Time. You know I'm connected to it. If there's any way to restore it to working order and delay this war… you'll need my help."

"Yes, yes, and I'll be happy to pick you up and take you to Atrios, once I've defeated the Daleks," the Doctor promised. "In fact, you can even come with me, and personally deliver the younger-Seo back to the Shadow, once I'm done. But until you've stabilized…"

"The what?" Romana cut in. "Shadow?"

"Seo's sire," the Doctor explained, with a wave of his hand. "That's what he calls himself, apparently."

Romana's breath caught in her throat. "Oh, dear. I should have thought of that."

"Thought of…?"

"We met another person calling himself the Shadow, Doctor," Romana reminded him. "On Atrios. Long ago."

"Yes, yes, but _that_ Shadow was killed, remember?" the Doctor dismissed. "And, anyways, this one looks completely different. There can't… possibly… be a connection to…"

The Doctor trailed off.

"Except," the Doctor muttered, "you're dying. And a Tevin seems to keep popping up, in Seo's life, with a sincere desire to see _me_ dead, as well."

"And if the Key to Time is involved…" Romana agreed.

"…then those 'Tevin' who've recently popped into Seo's life," the Doctor said, "aren't actually Tevin, at all. They're…"

"…the White and Black Guardians," said Romana.


	46. Chapter 46

Seo kept struggling to move, as the Daleks wired her and her past-self into the Nightmare Ring machine. She knew what she had to do — she'd already seen the results of it, in the future.

The problem was… it was going to be a lot harder to do it, if she was paralyzed.

"Don't wire _her_ up to it," the girl complained, making a face at Seo. "She'll just sabotage whatever you do!"

"INCORRECT," said the Daleks. "SHE WILL SUPPLY PSYCHIC ENERGY. SHE WILL NOT CONTROL THE NIGHTMARE RING."

"Oh." The girl smiled. "That's okay, then."

"Don't get too excited," Seo said. "They're not letting you control it, either."

The girl shot Seo a pointed look. "Of course they are. Don't be stupid."

Seo glanced at the coronet they were placing on her younger-self's head. "That's an alpha pulse translator. It'll flood your neural pathways with whatever alpha signal they want to transmit. In essence… they'll be thinking your thoughts, for you." She turned to the Daleks. "That could fry her brain, you know."

"CORRECT," said the Daleks.

"Which would destroy all the psychic energy you're getting from me," Seo continued. "Causing a hopeless paradox."

"INCORRECT," the Daleks replied. "YOU EXIST OUTSIDE OF TIME. THERE WILL BE A LAG BETWEEN HER DEATH AND YOUR NONEXISTENCE. THE LAG WILL BE LONG ENOUGH FOR OUR PURPOSES."

Seo took in a sharp breath. "You're right. Damn it. Why didn't I think of that?"

"BECAUSE YOU ARE AN INFERIOR LIFEFORM," the Daleks said.

"As is my younger-self, over there," said Seo, nodding at her younger-self. "Just an inferior lifeform, to you Daleks."

"CORRECT."

"A puppy," Seo added.

The girl bristled. "I am _not_ a puppy! And I'm _not your younger-self!_ "

"Hey, get angry the Daleks, not me," Seo replied. "They're the ones saying it."

"INCORRECT," said the Daleks. "SHE IS NOT A PUPPY."

"Thank you!" the girl said.

"SHE IS A CONTROL ELEMENT," said the Daleks. "A FOCAL POINT. SHE WILL BRING ABOUT THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TIME LORDS."

Seo almost laughed. The Daleks were playing right into her hands.

"My mistake," said Seo. "She's less than a puppy. She's just a cog in your machine!"

"CORRECT," said the Daleks.

The girl's eyes narrowed. "Oh, yeah? Well, just you see what kind of 'cog' I am, now!"

And spread open her arms, to feed.

"Extermination time, I think," Seo muttered. She solved a set of complicated temporal equations, inside her head. "And right on cue to wipe us both out."

But the Daleks didn't do it.

"ACTIVATE VAMPIRE RESTRAINT FIELD!" the Red Dalek commanded.

Seo blinked. "Activate… what?!"

Her younger-self cried out, as her powers were smothered with a shimmery glow in the air, around her.

"RESTRAINT FIELD ACTIVATED," said another Dalek. "FIELD RESTRICTING RATE OF VAMPIRIC TIME ABSORPTION TO 1 REL PER 100."

"MOVEMENT RESTRICTED TO MINIMUM LEVELS," another added.

Sure enough, it was as if the energy it took the girl to feed, was wrapping itself around her, restraining her and making it nearly impossible to feed off the Daleks… or even fight back.

Seo stared at it. Reluctantly impressed.

"Nice bit of tech," Seo remarked, dully. "Even if it does screw up my plans." She frowned, as a thought crossed her mind. "Hang on. If you had that restraint field, the whole time, why didn't you use it on me, earlier? I mean, you didn't even use it the first time you caught me, when I broke into your base in the Pleiades!"

The Daleks didn't answer.

But they didn't need to.

"Oh!" Seo beamed. "You've been expecting me to feed on you for a while, now, haven't you? And I've been screwing up your plan, by refusing to act like a vampire."

"SILENCE!" a Dalek commanded her.

"COMPUTING ENERGY THRESHOLD LEVEL," came a Dalek from the far end of the room. He glided forwards, placing his plunger against the wall. "TEMPORAL ENERGY LEVEL IN SUBJECT IS INSUFFICIENT TO BREAK GALLIFREY'S TIME LOCK."

"Break Gallifrey's time lock?!" Seo didn't like the sound of that.

"COMPUTE ENERGY DIFFERENTIAL," the Red Dalek commanded.

The Dalek by the machinery twisted its plunger. "ENERGY DIFFERENTIAL REQUIRED TO BREAK TIME LOCK COMPUTES TO THE POPULATION OF THE RUBOBORN GALAXY."

"Oh, please don't tell me you're going to force-feed her an entire galaxy, just to destroy the Time Lords!" Seo complained. "The Time Lords are a bunch of jerks! They're so not worth it."

"GALLIFREYAN DEFENSE MEASURES WOULD ENGAGE BEFORE ENERGY THRESHOLD HAS BEEN MET," said the Red Dalek.

"AGREED." The Dalek next to the machinery twisted his plunger, yet again. "ENERGY THRESHOLD LEVEL SUFFICIENT FOR ACCESS AND LINKUP TO ALL TARDISES, ACROSS TIME AND SPACE."

"Linkup to TARDISes?" Seo shook her head. "But that's no good to you! It doesn't work!" She gave a little laugh. "Not at all. In fact, unless there's a Time Lord around to act as a buffer, all a linkup does is destroy…"

She trailed off.

A rising dread spread through her.

"That's what you want," Seo realized. "To destroy all the TARDISes."

"CORRECT."

Forget the sinking of the Lusitania. This was Pearl Harbor.

And Seo was making it possible.

"I can't let you do it," Seo insisted. She struggled to regain some control over her limbs, but although she could wiggle her fingers a bit, she still wasn't close to freeing herself. "I won't let you start the Time War by eliminating the Time Lords' ability to time travel. It'd be a massacre!"

"CORRECT. THE TIME LORDS WILL BE EXTERMINATED."

"GALLIFREY WILL BE EXTERMINATED!" the other Daleks chanted, excitedly. "GALLIFREY WILL BE EXTERMINATED!"

Seo frantically tried to think of something she could do, to stop this. This was, after all, exactly what she'd sworn to never let happen again! This kind of slaughter!

But she was running out of options.

She couldn't even kill herself, damn it!

"There is, of course, one thing you can do," said a voice, below her, "to stop all this, in its tracks."

Seo looked down, and stared, as she saw… the Tevin, from earlier, appear out of nowhere. He was now attired all in black, with a dead crow on his hat.

A… dead crow?

What the hell?!

He floated up, until he was at her height. Hovered in the air, before her.

"If you've shown up, here, just to try to convince me to kill the Doctor for no good reason," Seo snapped at him, "then I'd love to explain to you, in full anatomical detail, exactly where you can cram your offer. But I don't have time."

"A TARDIS linkup will not destroy _any_ TARDISes," said the man, "if there is a Time Lord to act as a buffer. In fact, it would allow you to _control_ those TARDISes. Even — if you used the Nightmare Ring, correctly — move them past a time lock, and into the _Daleks'_ past."

Seo sighed. "Great! Wonderful! Let's just grab a Time Lord, and… oh, wait, I forgot. There are no Time Lords, here."

"You have drunk the blood of a Time Lord," the man replied. "That creates a connection between you two."

Seo felt her cheeks burn. "That… wasn't exactly something I'm proud of." She thought back to Jodelex and Gaellian. The two Time Lords she had… in a momentary loss of control… drained.

Then she shook her head.

"No, it wouldn't work," Seo said. "The psychic energy powering this machine is split between me and younger-me. _I've_ drained Jodelex and Gaellian — but she hasn't. She has no connection to them."

"Not _them_ ," said the man.

Seo paused a moment. Then, a horrible thought crossed her mind. As she remembered… that her younger-self, just to piss Seo off, had drained a little of the Doctor's blood.

"Yes, that's it," the man said, catching the look on Seo's face. "You've worked it out."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" Seo accused. She struggled, harder, against her restraints. "You know, the Doctor is pretty much the only Time Lord I'm not absolutely furious at, right now."

The man didn't seem affected by her irritation. "You can bring Gallifrey's entire time fleet to Skaro, in its past. Wipe out the Daleks, forever. Prevent the war."

"Controlling that many TARDISes wouldn't just kill the Doctor," said Seo. "It'd create a feedback loop in this machine, triggering the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, and killing me!"

"Killing present-you," the Black Guardian said. "But not past-you." He paused, considering. "Of course, such an action would also fuse this machine in just the way it was, when you encountered it, in the future."

Seo shuddered.

Did she have no choice? Was she always supposed to do this?

"No," Seo decided. "It still won't happen." She nodded at the Daleks below them. "The Daleks will never let me get away with it. Especially not now that you've blabbed the whole plan, in front of them."

The man gave her an enigmatic smile. "But they can't hear me. Nor can they hear you, when you speak to me."

Seo watched, as the man floated out, over the crowd of Daleks. Raised up his hands.

And time froze, around them.

"What...? How…?" Seo felt a chill run through her. "You're not a Tevin."

"No," said the man. "I am the master of chaos. The force of destruction. The ruler of death." His eyes flashed, and when he spoke, again, his voice tore through Seo like a thousand whips flaying her skin. "Kill the Doctor! Obey me!"

"What are you?!" Seo shouted.

"I am the Black Guardian," the man thundered. "Ruler of half of reality. Once the Time War begins, and chaos spreads… I will be the ruler of _all_ reality. Every last corner of creation will be mine!" He approached her, with a menacing glare. "And you will be the means of my revenge against the Doctor and Romana. You will destroy them, Seosyrae. You will become my agent."


	47. Chapter 47

"Of course, of course!" the Doctor cried, as he raced around the console of his TARDIS. "Why didn't I see it, earlier? Her name!"

"Her name?" Romana asked.

"Seosyrae! The name she chose for herself!" the Doctor said. "It's Irigovan for 'messenger of light'. Don't you see, Romana? That's what she's chosen to do! She finds planets filled with chaos and death, and rebuilds them!"

"Creating order from chaos," Romana realized. It came clear to her, all at once. "She's an agent of the White Guardian."

"Oh, yes!" The Doctor threw a lever, and the TARDIS surged into motion. "An unwitting agent, but still an agent. Sent to throw a spanner in the works of the Black Guardian — and to protect the two of us. All this time, I thought _I_ was supposed to protect _her_ — turns out, _she_ was sent to protect _me_!"

"But she's a thief!" Romana protested. "I thought the White Guardian stood for law and order. 'Law' being the opposite of 'theft', 'bribery', and whatever else she's been doing."

The Doctor shot Romana a pointed look. "Romana, we're on the cusp of one of the most catastrophic, chaotic wars in all of time and space," he said. "I don't think the White Guardian can afford to be picky."

"And you do, of course, realize that she almost certainly started out as an agent of the Black Guardian," said Romana. "Back when she was with her sire."

"That hasn't escaped me," the Doctor said. He sighed. "In fact, I think the Black Guardian is furious that he lost her. Seo told me he's shown up, a number of times, demanding she kill me."

Romana doubled over, heaving in breath, as she flickered into and out of existence, yet again.

The Doctor lunged forward, to catch her.

"Although, it seems, he doesn't even _need_ her consent, to make her kill you," the Doctor muttered. "Funny that he needs to ask, to make her kill me, but not you. I wonder why."

"I'm not sure even _she_ would know the answer to that." Romana coughed, as she steadied herself. But still clung to the central console, for support.

The Doctor was thinking, fast. "It's something to do with her father," he decided. "Her father had gotten himself involved in some project, working with the Daleks. Experimenting on his own daughter, to help them."

"Her father was… _what_?!" Romana said.

"But what if Seo was right?" the Doctor mused. "What if cooperation with the Daleks _had_ been a trick, right from the start? And what if, one day, the Daleks figured out that her father had been tricking them?"

"The moment they didn't need him, anymore, they'd exterminate him," Romana said. "Ally or no."

"Precisely!" the Doctor agreed. He flicked a few more controls, on the console, steering them towards their destination. "Seo's father was in a terrible pickle. Couldn't get himself out of it. Unless, of course…"

"…he made a deal," Romana realized, "with the Black Guardian." She shuddered, as she felt herself fading into and out of existence. "Our lives, in exchange for his freedom?"

" _Your_ life, Romana!" the Doctor countered. "The Black Guardian needed Seo to _agree_ to kill me. But he didn't need her to agree to kill _you_. He could arrange your death from behind the scenes."

Romana struggled to keep herself standing upright. "But why _me_ , and not _you_?"

"Oh, I wouldn't take it personally; you're just a bigger target," the Doctor said. "President of Gallifrey? Imagine, everything you've ever done, getting unravelled and undone, as you were erased! It'd be…"

"…chaos," Romana realized. "Absolute chaos."

"Besides, I'm sure the Black Guardian has contrived some way to make sure that, by killing you, Seo will also be forced to kill me," the Doctor continued. "Perhaps he'll even threaten the universe, to make her do it. He seems the sort."

"Yes, he is rather vindictive, isn't he?" Romana said, with a small smile, as she steadied herself from another near collapse. "I suppose we have Narvin to thank, for alerting us to the danger."

"Don't thank anyone, yet," said the Doctor. "We still have to get Seo off that Dalek ship. And hope her younger-self doesn't destroy the universe out of spite, before we're able to." The TARDIS whined, as he slammed down another few levers. "Old Girl doesn't like this. All those timelines in flux, around that Dalek ship."

"The TARDIS isn't designed to allow someone to cross their own timeline," Romana confirmed, helping him to stabilize the flight. "It reacts against it."

The Doctor paused.

"Cross their own… timeline," he muttered, his mind suddenly racing. Then, his eyes lit up, and he beamed, in triumph. "Yes. Yes! That's it!"

He leapt to the other side of the console, jabbing at a new set of controls.

The cloister bell began to clang, as the TARDIS bucked and struggled against the new flight path, its console screeching out in protest to the alteration.

"Doctor, what are you…?" Romana began.

"Crossing our own timeline, Romana!" the Doctor said, leaping to another spot on the console and flipping up another switch. He yanked a lever. "You said it, yourself!"

"What?!" Romana felt dizzy, yet again — and the erratic behavior of the TARDIS wasn't helping. "But you can't…!"

"The Dalek battleship is steeped in time distortion," the Doctor interrupted. "Temporal probabilities are leaning, more and more, towards a future in which Seo wipes herself out. That's created a temporal haze around the ship — amplified by where we are, in space-time. After all, we're drifting just outside the place where the Olitzitz War was fought."

Romana glanced at the readings. "Doctor, this TARDIS is already struggling to maintain its own existence in this unstable area of space. If you try anything, at all…"

"Quite right!" the Doctor said. "But it'll affect the Dalek battleship, just as much as it'll affect us. Which means they won't be able to stop us doing… this!"

He pulled the dematerialization lever, grinning.

Nothing happened.

"…I was going to say, if you try anything at all," Romana said, "you'll run out of power. Nothing will happen."

"Nothing will…?" The Doctor raced over to the TARDIS databanks, reading the diagnostics on the screen. "Ah, yes. Power. I see what you mean." He adjusted some settings on the console. "Well, then. Shields, down! That'll be enough power!"

"You can't be serious!" Romana cried.

But he'd already taken the shields down, completely. And had thrown the dematerialization lever.

"Doctor, if you kill us both, trying to save our lives," Romana snapped, as the TARDIS juddered around them, "I will be very cross with you."

"Then let's hope it doesn't come to that!" the Doctor said, as he watched the TARDIS enact his brilliant plan.


	48. Chapter 48

Seo waited until the booming sound of the Black Guardian's voice died away, in the Dalek battleship.

Then gave a dramatic yawn.

"Are you done, yet?" Seo asked.

The Black Guardian's fury flooded the air around them, thick and putrid, like the smell of something rotting and dying.

"You _will_ kill the Doctor and Romana," the Black Guardian demanded. "Your father promised you to me."

"Oh, is _that_ what he did?" Seo shook her head. "I thought he just asked you to make sure I killed the Doctor. Now, you're saying he wanted me to kill _two_ Time Lords and become your slave. Get your story straight, Black Guardian."

"Your father's mistakes created chaos, death, and devastation across the universe," the Black Guardian said. "That made him my agent. Eventually, he realized that. Eventually, he embraced it. You ephemerals always do."

Yeah, Seo guessed that her father had 'embraced' being the Black Guardian's agent the same way she had 'embraced' the prospect of being Liantor's wife.

"Therefore, when he found himself in a mess with the Daleks, he knew only I could get him out," the Black Guardian said. "He called on me, and I obliged. The only payment I asked for was his first born child."

Seo rolled her eyes. "Where'd you get that from? Grimm's Fairytales?"

The Black Guardian's eyes narrowed.

"Look, I'll admit — my father wasn't perfect," Seo said. "He was a trickster and a coward, and I know the Shadow blames Daddy for turning him into a vampire." She stared straight into the Black Guardian's eyes. "But my father would never have harmed _me_. I'm sure of that."

"He experimented on you, for the Daleks," the Black Guardian said. "Or had you forgotten?"

Seo's confidence wavered, a hair.

The Doctor… _had_ mentioned something about that, earlier…

"I know what you'll say," the Black Guardian continued. "You'll say your father was tricking the Daleks. And he was, of course. Your father never really intended to hand you over to them." His voice lowered. "But he always had his own agenda. And that agenda was far more important to him than you ever were."

"That's a lie," Seo snapped. "He loved me. I _know_ he did."

"He left his home planet for a reason, you know," the Black Guardian said. "He had a mission. Unfortunately, his first attempt failed. No… not just failed. It was a disaster. I'm sure the Shadow's told you all about that; it is, after all, what led to your mother's death — and to your sire's vampirism."

Seo gritted her teeth.

Yes. The Shadow had told her all about it.

"But when your father ran away from that failure," said the Black Guardian, "he took you with him. Why?"

"Because I was his daughter," Seo said.

"Or, perhaps, because you were a useful bargaining chip," said the Black Guardian. "Something he could offer the Daleks, so they'd help him with his mission?" He grinned. "And, of course, something he could offer me, when the Daleks discovered his plans to double cross them. Something to coerce me into extracting him from his predicament."

Seo struggled against her bonds. She was finally starting to make some headway.

"You know what they say about half-Tevin children," said the Black Guardian. "You're all born broken. And yet, you're all born so powerful! Used properly, a half-Tevin could allow anyone, anywhere, to break all the rules of the universe."

All the rules.

From something as simple as a time lock…

To something as complicated as allowing the Black Guardian to overcome the balance between good and evil.

"You think you're so smart, don't you?" Seo said. She shook her head as much as she could, now that she was overcoming the paralysis. "But I don't believe your story. Not a word."

"And why not?" the Black Guardian demanded.

"Because if I _was_ your agent, you wouldn't have to yell and scream at me, in order to get me to kill the Doctor," Seo reasoned. "You'd find some way to make me. I wouldn't have a choice."

The Black Guardian looked a little smug. "The way I'm making you kill Romana, you mean?"

Seo stared at him.

A chill ran through her.

"You're right, to a certain extent," the Black Guardian said. "Your father cheated me. He robbed me of my prize. You _should_ have been mine, able to destroy any and all Time Lords, if I chose… but your father refused. He made sure the only life I could force you to take would be the Lady President Romana's."

"Wait, Romana's?!" Seo frowned, confused. It didn't make sense. "You mean… Daddy promised I'd kill _Romana_? And not _the Doctor_?"

After all… if the Doctor had invaded her own past, and her father had figured that out…

Why _wouldn't_ her father give the Black Guardian the ability to make her kill the Doctor? Daddy would have _known_ that the Doctor would appear in Seo's future. He would have _known_ that the Doctor would try to stop Romana's death. And the Black Guardian seemed a lot more intent on killing the Doctor than Romana, anyways.

So why…?

The Black Guardian reached out and touched the restraint around Seo's right wrist. "Pity of it is… killing Romana will destroy you, too. Maybe even wipe you out of time."

"I won't kill Gallifrey's President for you," Seo insisted. "I refuse."

"And yet, by using the Key to Time, you've already linked yourself to her," said the Black Guardian. "When you die, she dies. If you wipe yourself out, then you wipe her out, too."

Seo felt a chill run through her.

So that was how it was supposed to work.

"And if you stubbornly refuse to take your own life," said the Black Guardian, "then the Daleks will do it, for you. But they'll do so by shutting down all the TARDISes and creating a paradox so terrible, it will destroy the Eye of Harmony and shatter Gallifrey's defenses. Gallifrey will be a sitting duck. Every last Time Lord will be massacred."

Seo stared at him.

The Black Guardian had done it. He'd caught her in a catch-22. No matter what she did… she would always die. And she would always kill Romana, when she did.

And if she found a way to erase herself from the timelines, so the Daleks couldn't possibly use her to destroy Gallifrey…

"If I wipe myself out," Seo said, "then every planet I've ever saved will die, with me. Billions of people."

"Yes."

"I'll be saving Gallifrey," Seo said, "but dooming both Romana and countless innocent worlds to death." She felt her breath coming a little too fast. "But if I let the Daleks do what they want… then Romana will die, anyways. Gallifrey will be destroyed. And the Daleks will take over all of time and space — killing billions of people."

"Yes."

Seo felt the hopelessness of her situation. "There's no way out of this."

"Ah, but there is," said the Black Guardian. "You are forgetting — you've drunk the Doctor's blood. You can use him to reverse the Daleks' plans. Prevent the Time War."

Oh, no.

No, no, no, no, no.

This could not be happening.

(And why had her father promised the Black Guardian that Seo would kill Romana? Why not the Doctor? That had to be important!)

"Romana will still die," said the Black Guardian, "but you won't be erasing her past. Nor will you be erasing your own past. History will not change." His voice grew smug, yet cold, as he whispered, "It's your only choice. Either you kill the Doctor and Romana… or you kill billions of innocents."

Seo struggled to get free, but still couldn't.

Damn it.

"Yeah, you're definitely enjoying this," Seo muttered. "Way too much."

"If you'd been cooperative, back when I first asked you to kill the Doctor," the Black Guardian said, "I'd have given you a way to survive this." He shook his head. "But you chose to defy me."

"Just like my father defied you, you mean?" Seo glared at the Black Guardian. "My father didn't give a damn about killing either the Doctor or President Romana, did he? _You_ did. This is _your_ vendetta, not his!"

"Your father hated the Time Lords," said the Black Guardian. "Their race destroyed the Tevin, and he could never forgive that."

"Hated? Yes, definitely," said Seo. "But there's a big difference between hating someone and wanting to kill them. My father had many flaws, and he created one hell of a mess across the universe. But he was _not_ a murderer. And he would never have turned _me_ into one, either." Her voice lowered. "Thing is, the Doctor showed up, in my past. My father would have figured out that the Doctor was from my future."

"What of it?" the Black Guardian said.

"So… why?" said Seo. "Why did my father promise I'd kill President Romana — a well-guarded Time Lady, whom I've never even met, living on a planet with impenetrable shields — when he knew I'd have the perfect chance to kill the Doctor?"

The Black Guardian looked a little uneasy, as it became clear… he didn't have an answer to this.

"Fine, then — I'll tell you," said Seo. "My father didn't want me to kill _anyone_. But he knew you would never leave him alone, and the Daleks would never stop looking for me — so he created a plan to beat you both."

"There is no point pursuing this line of logic," the Black Guardian insisted.

But Seo knew she was onto something. "What if my father anticipated that you'd ask for the Doctor and President Romana's deaths?" she said. "What if he did his research? What if he realized the only way to _really_ get out of his contract with the Daleks wasn't using _your_ powers — but using the Doctor's?"

"This is nonsense," the Black Guardian said.

"Really?" Seo grinned. "Because if I were raising a child to kill the Time Lord President, I'd feed her all kinds of horror stories about the Time Lords. I'd brainwash her from an early age, make her so scared, she'd feel like she _had_ to kill their President. But my father never did that. He only ever mentioned the Time Lords a few times, and even then, he compared himself to them, saying they had both made a terrible mistake."

"Your father pledged your life to me!" the Black Guardian boomed.

"He pledged me to no one!" Seo shouted, back. "My father would never have sought out the Daleks, himself — he was a coward! The Daleks must have captured him. He offered them a contract, so they'd spare his life and mine. That meant Daddy didn't have any choice but to work with the Daleks — or, at least, not until the Doctor showed up. That's when my father figured it all out. Daddy summoned you, expecting you'd ask _him_ to kill the Doctor. With your powers at his disposal, my father could lead the Doctor right into the middle of Project Olitzitz… and let the Doctor deal with it. Then, when the Doctor was in the thick of things, Daddy could blow this battleship to pieces, with the Doctor onboard. The Dalek plans would be defeated. You'd be happy, because the Doctor was dead. And Daddy could keep running away from all his problems — just like he always did."

"But I didn't want him," said the Black Guardian. "I wanted you. He was weak. You are strong."

"He was strong enough to defy you," Seo snapped. "He was strong enough to refuse to give me up to you. And he was smart enough to figure out that — if he offered you Romana's life — you'd get greedy. You'd want the Doctor dead, too. But the Doctor is the Daleks' number one enemy for a reason… and when he shows up, here, he'll defeat them and rescue me. I'm sure!"

The Black Guardian was silent for a long moment.

And Seo felt her confidence at vindicating her father failing, as she looked into the Black Guardian's cold, merciless eyes.

"You are strong," the Black Guardian repeated. "Determined. You don't run from your mistakes. And you don't rely on others to fix them, for you." He grabbed the restraint around her right wrist. "You don't know if the Doctor will show up. You don't even care. All you're doing, by shouting at me, is trying to buy yourself time, so you can think up some way out of this."

Which was true.

But Seo didn't want the Black Guardian to know that.

"I bet it really stings, knowing that a Tevin coward outsmarted an all-powerful entity like you," Seo said, instead. "Unless…" Her eyes sparkled. "Oh, wait! Let me guess. Daddy could predict your plans because… you've tried this before, huh? Grabbing up someone close to the Doctor, and convincing them to kill him? Yeah, that must have worked really well. The Doctor looks really dead, to me."

"Silence!" shouted the Black Guardian.

"Hit a nerve, huh?" Seo smirked. She struggled, again. It wasn't her imagination — she was definitely managing to loosen the restraints around her arms. The paralyzing ray had almost completely worn off. "Figures. I mean, in charge of half the universe, and you're still stuck cajoling and coercing a half-Tevin mutated vampire, like me, to do your dirty work!" She laughed. "You're not an all-powerful entity. You're just a schoolyard bully!"

"You will be silent!" the Black Guardian commanded, his voice like a smack in Seo's face.

She opened her mouth to retort something back to him.

Then realized… she couldn't speak.

"You don't have the first idea of my power, you tiny, broken little ephemeral," the Black Guardian said. He grabbed her by the wrists, his face right in hers. "I could have approached your younger-self. She'd have killed the Doctor and Romana with pleasure. But she's just a silly little girl. She's massacred billions, yet barely understands what she's done." His eyes gleamed with malice. "You are so much stronger than her. Maybe not physically, but… inside. Oh, so much stronger! All that dedication. All that knowledge. All that stubborn persistence. Defiance, even in the face of inevitable defeat."

Seo wanted to scream at him.

The moron!

Strong she may be, but she would rather die than become a killer, again. He'd never make her obey him. Not in a million years.

"Even now, I can see it, in your eyes," the Black Guardian noted. "That fire. That anger. Why recruit a silly little girl to be my agent, when I can have _you_?"

Seo spat in his face.

The spittle went right through him, as if he weren't there. But she could still feel his hands clenching her wrists, tightly.

"That's the power I wield," said the Black Guardian. "I don't have to settle for second best. If I want you to kill the Doctor and Romana, then you will. You have no choice."

He let go of her wrists.

And floated back, aways.

"Your life is forfeit, no matter what," the Black Guardian said. "But know this: if the Doctor is not dead, within the next hour, then Narvin will be. That I promise you."

Then, he vanished.

And the Daleks, around her, sprung back into life.

"NIGHTMARE RING COMMENCING PSYCHIC BUILDUP," the Daleks shouted. "BUILDUP COMPLETE IN 60 RELS."

Seo felt a blaze of fire run through her mind, as the coronet she wore dug into her skull.

She bit her lip, to stop herself screaming.

This was it. She had 60 seconds to save Romana, the Doctor, the whole universe — and stop the Daleks from killing her. 60 seconds to put her final, last-ditch plan into action.

The plan she'd only thought up while she was distracting the Black Guardian.

She stretched her restraints, using the liberty she'd gained during her verbal spar with the Black Guardian. And, with a real effort, managed to reach the coronet around her head.

She felt for the circuitry she needed to alter.

Come on… come on…!

"ENGAGING BLINOVITCH DAMPENERS," the Daleks shouted. "TARGETING FOCUS ON TIME LORD CAPSULES."

An expanse of stars and improbability and probability exploded inside of Seo's head, as she felt herself connecting with every TARDIS across time and space. The pain made her feel like her brain was boiling, like her skull was splitting open and every single nerve was on fire.

She heard someone screaming.

And realized… it was her.

No! She couldn't let herself get distracted. She couldn't let this beat her! She had to… had to…

But it was so hard to think…

So hard to remember… what she was trying… to…

"TEN RELS TO UNIVERSAL TARDIS DESTRUCTION," the Daleks reported.

The Red Dalek twitched in anticipation. "GALLIFREY WILL BE EXTERMINATED. THE TIME LORDS WILL BE EXTERMINATED. THE DALEKS WILL REIGN SUPREME!"

Seo struggled to hang on, but she could already feel herself slipping away… further and further…

Then the whole Dalek battleship shook.

And a loud wheezing and groaning sound echoed, around them.

"WHAT IS THIS?" the Red Dalek demanded.

"ALERT! ALERT! DALEK BATTLESHIP DEMATERIALIZING!" shouted one of the Daleks.

"PSYCHIC STABILIZATION DECREASING!" shouted another.

"TARDIS LINKUP FAILING!" shouted a third.

"ACTIVATE RE-INITIALIZATION OF PSYCHIC PROCESS!" the Red Dalek demanded. "THE TIME LORDS MUST BE DESTROYED!"

But it was already too late.

For just a second, the pain had ebbed. For just a second, Seo could think, again.

And a second was all she needed.

"TARDIS LINKUP RE-INITIALIZING!" shouted the Daleks. "PSYCHIC BUILDUP RE-ENGAGING."

"ALERT! DOCTOR'S TARDIS DETECTED!" shouted another Dalek. "SENSORS INDICATE IT HAS DEMATERIALIZED THIS BATTLESHIP INTO THE VORTEX!"

"EXTERMINATE THE DOCTOR'S TARDIS!" the Red Dalek demanded. "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMIN…!"

That was when a spark shot through the whole Dalek battleship. And every single Dalek, nearby, received a jolt of raw, surging power.

"ALERT! ALERT!" shouted the Daleks. "WHAT IS HAPPENING?!"

"THE FOCUS HAS BEEN SHIFTED!" one of the Daleks reported. "ONLY ONE TARDIS HAS BEEN TARGETED!"

"WHICH TARDIS?" the Red Dalek demanded. "WHAT HAS HAPPENED? REPORT. REPORT!"

Another jolt rippled through the Daleks, around the battleship. They began emitting a terrible, guttural sound.

"I happened," Seo whispered.


	49. Chapter 49

The Doctor shuddered back, as he felt power blaze through him. He doubled over, clutching his head.

"Doctor!" Romana cried.

But when she reached out, to catch him, she began wavering into and out of existence, again.

"I'm fine!" the Doctor said, standing up straight. "Fine." He gripped the console, tightly. The TARDIS began convulsing, the ambient light around them growing and dimming, at random intervals.

"What…?" Romana said.

But stopped, as she realized… whispers and ghostly figures had suddenly appeared, from nowhere, whizzing around the TARDIS console room.

"You can see it, too?" the Doctor asked. He broke into a wide grin. "Brilliant! I thought it was just me."

"Doctor, can you explain precisely what is happening, here?" Romana demanded. "What did you do?"

Before the Doctor could answer, though, a sudden flood of images and sounds and jumbled memories flickered around them. The Doctor and Romana could see the Daleks shouting about TARDIS linkups, could see the Nightmare Ring flickering into and out of existence, could feel the straps and restraints around their arms and legs — as if they really were being restrained.

Which, of course, they weren't.

They could hear the shout of Seo's voice: "I won't let you start the Time War by destroying the Time Lords' ability to time travel!"

"Pearl Harbor," the Doctor muttered. "Of course. So that's what they're up to."

He winced, as he felt sudden, stabbing pain in his head. But clung to his TARDIS, and allowed the connection to flow through him.

"Pearl what?" Romana said.

"Pearl Harbor! On Earth!" the Doctor said. "Don't you see, Romana? The Daleks don't _have_ to break Gallifrey's time lock! Seo's a TARDIS killer. Link her up to every TARDIS, across time and space…"

"And every single TARDIS would die," Romana realized. Horror crept through her, and she shuddered. "We'd enter the Time War, without a single time ship to our name."

The TARDIS juddered and bucked, nearly throwing the Doctor and Romana against the back wall.

"But why are we seeing all this?" Romana asked, over the noise of the creaking and groaning TARDIS.

The Doctor began to laugh. "Because the shields are down, Romana! If she's targeting every TARDIS across time and space, that makes mine first — and with the shields down, Seo can adjust the focus and swamp my ship."

"But… _this_ TARDIS is still alive," Romana said. She was already feeling better than she had in months.

"Because Seo's rooting the power through me!" the Doctor said, with another laugh. "Oh, that clever, clever woman. Tell Narvin this one's a keeper!"

Romana cleared her throat, annoyed that the Doctor wasn't answering her questions.

"The younger-her drank my blood!" the Doctor said. "That gives both of her a link to me… however tiny. Blow that up, with a psychic amplification field, strap her to a tool like the Nightmare Ring… and she can actually interface with me and my TARDIS, at a distance."

The TARDIS' lights flashed, as Gallifreyan computer code flickered across the monitors, almost too fast to read.

"And, if these readings are to be believed," the Doctor said, rounding the console and peering at them, "she's using the TARDIS' computer capabilities to hack into the Dalek ship."

"To do what?" Romana asked. "Destroy it?"

"Oh, no, I'm guessing she'll be up to the same thing she wanted to do, when I first met her," the Doctor said. "She won't use her right hand, for fear of killing me — so she can't alter reality. But she can give the Daleks a little taste of her memories."

"What?" Romana said, honestly confused. "Doctor, will you please start making sense?!"

"The power of the left hand, Romana," said the Doctor. He flipped a few switches, and raced over to the other side of the console. "Those Daleks will never have felt anything like what Seo's about to transmit into their minds."

"Transmit into…?" Romana felt her mind spinning. "You mean… she's actually trying to _change_ the Daleks?"

"Oh, yes!" the Doctor cried. "So we'd better hope we materialize, soon!"

"Why?" Romana asked.

"Because she's done one of the most beautiful, inspiring things I have ever seen," the Doctor said. "And that means… the Daleks are going to kill her for it."

* * *

"I happened!" Seo told the Daleks, a little louder. Her left hand now glowed with purple energy. "Thanks for the gloat, Black Guardian. I'd never have thought to use the Doctor as a buffer, without you."

Then, she thudded her left hand flat against the Nightmare Ring.

The Nightmare Ring blazed with purple energy.

"But I've got two hands," Seo said. "One for sharing, and one for sacrifice. And you know what?" Her eyes were thunderous. "I'm sick of sacrificing my life and my happiness for two races who think they're the only beings that matter in the whole goddamn universe!"

A burst of purple energy shot through the Daleks, and they all began shuddering and spinning out of control.

"You can't feel anything but hate?" Seo shouted. "Well, have some of _my_ emotions! How about my fear that your war will destroy the planets I love? How about my guilt at all the people I've killed, and the shame I feel when I know I can't bring them back? And here's the sadness I feel when I think about all the orphans your war will produce, and all the pain and fear you'll inflict on others."

"THIS… IS NOT… SHOULD NOT…!" the Daleks cried out, trying to get control of themselves.

"And while I'm in the mood to share," Seo shouted, over them, "have some of my love! My happiness! Those moments when I sit back in a sunlit meadow, hearing the birds chirping on a planet I've rebuilt, and I'm overwhelmed with this beautiful sense of… peace."

"THAT… IS NOT…!" the Daleks tried to say. "THERE CANNOT… BE PEACE… UNTIL…!"

But they were sobbing, inside their casings.

"That last one feel kind of confusing for you?" Seo said. "Let me tell you something about real inner peace. It's that moment when you feel the whole world around you, all that life and energy and time, so tangible and alive that you can practically taste it. And you sit down, and know… that you're a part of it. You realize your place in a far grander, far more complicated ecosystemical machine. You feel… content. Happy. At peace."

"NO! NO! THERE IS NO WORTHY LIFE EXCEPT DALEK LIFE!" the Daleks insisted.

"That's the thing neither you nor the Time Lords seem to get!" said Seo. "We're _all_ a part of this universe! All part of a larger balance of intergalactic life. You Daleks can't storm out and randomly commit acts of genocide, any more than the Time Lords can sit back and 'observe' those acts without caring enough to stop them. We're all part of this, together, and if we want any hope of survival, we need to stop threatening Time Wars and start trying to get along! Take responsibility and—"

"That's a lie!" came a shout, to Seo's right.

Seo glanced over, and saw her younger-self. Tears now streamed down her face, as she frantically tried to reject everything the purple energy had shown her.

"It's a lie, all of it!" the girl shouted, again. "You're not me! You can't be me! I don't have a future! Nothing matters!" A tear rolled down her cheeks. "The people I killed can't mean anything. They just… can't!"

Seo felt her heart go out to the girl.

"I'm so sorry," Seo told her younger-self, softly. "But you're wrong."

"No! No! No!" the girl screamed, desperate to reject it all. "I can't deal with that! Guilt! Consequences! Everyone hating me, blaming me for what happened like it's all my fault! I can't… can't…!" She broke down into sobs. "Please," she begged Seo. "Tell me it's a lie. Please! I'll do _anything_!"

It was as if the girl's interruption had somehow broken the spell over the Daleks.

"THESE EMOTIONS _ARE_ LIES," the Daleks decided. "THERE IS NO WORTHY LIFE EXCEPT DALEK LIFE. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS 'INNER PEACE'. THE ONLY PEACE THAT EXISTS WILL OCCUR WHEN THERE IS NOTHING LEFT EXCEPT THE DALEKS."

Seo struggled to regain control. "No, don't listen to her! Listen to…!"

"EXTERMINATE!" cried the Red Dalek.

"EXTERMINATE!" cried all the other Daleks, as they opened fire at Seo.

Seo opened her mouth, desperately commanding them to stop. None of them were paying any attention.

But as the extermination rays travelled towards her… they froze, in midair.

So did Seo.

And so did everything else, across the entire universe. Every comet. Every planet. Every solar flare about to burst, every child laughing, every man sitting up and stretching after a long nap.

Frozen, in time.

Except for two people.

They landed, inside a blue police box, onboard the Dalek ship.


	50. Chapter 50

For a moment, before they'd landed, Romana felt herself dying. It was as if every part of her DNA was unravelling, all at once, and she couldn't regenerate.

Couldn't even breathe.

"There! Got it!" the Doctor cried, and threw the materialization lever.

Then, just as Romana was sure she was on her last breath…

Everything stopped.

Romana was fine.

"What…? How…?" Romana began, catching her breath.

"The Dalek Battleship was orbiting, outside the Oltizitz War zone," the Doctor replied. "I just scooted it inside, a bit. And, of course, brought it to one particular point in time."

He raced to the door, and flung it open.

"Come along, no time to lose!" the Doctor shouted, as he ran outside.

"Doctor, the entire ship will be swarming with Daleks! You can't…!" Romana began, racing after him.

Then hesitated.

She was standing in the middle of a swarm of frozen Daleks. The lights on their domes were stuck in mid-flash, their gunstalks in mid-wave, the computers in mid-computation.

"How…?" Romana began.

The Doctor pounded a button on the side of the hull, and a window opened up. Outside the battleship, Romana could see a very small reddish planet, near its neighboring greenish planet. And a fleet of warships frozen in mid-descent towards the greenish planet.

"Well?" the Doctor asked, as if the tableau answered all her questions.

Romana sighed. "Doctor, you'll have to remind me exactly what I'm looking at. It's been a while since I've had the opportunity to travel, properly, around the universe."

"Oh, Romana!" the Doctor chided. He flung an arm around her shoulders, and pointed out the window. "Right now, there are two pairs of us. The you and I from now, and the you and I that are right about… there!" He adjusted his point to a planet. "Inside the TARDIS! Commanding the Key to Time to freeze the universe, just before a certain Marshal can blow both Atrios and Zeos to smithereens."

Romana's eyes lit up. "Of course! Back in my first incarnation! We faked a sixth segment, so we could stop the universe!" Romana laughed. "So _that's_ what you meant when you said we'd be crossing our own timelines! Terribly clever, Doctor."

The Doctor beamed. "Yes, it is, if I say so, myself!" He spun around, and raced off. "We don't have long. Time to find Seo and her younger-self, get everyone back to where they should be, and sort out this problem of you dying, once and for all!"

Romana sighed.

"No, we really don't have long," Romana agreed, remembering from several lifetimes ago. "After all, we only froze the universe for a minute. Afterwards, we placed the universe in a time loop."

And from what Romana had felt, in the TARDIS, just before they'd materialized… Seo was only seconds away from death.

If time began to loop, Romana would quickly find herself dying, once more.

"Time loop! Marvelous idea!" the Doctor called back to her. "I must have been a genius, when I thought that one up."

"Yes, but seeing as I was close to death, when time stopped," Romana said, racing to catch him up, "I'd prefer not to spend the last few seconds of my life dying over and over again."

The Doctor beamed. "Not to worry! That won't happen!"

"Why not?" Romana demanded.

They spun around a corner.

"Because, first of all, you and I are outside of time right now — and will remain so!" the Doctor replied. "And, secondly, because I know how to cure you!" He paused, closing his eyes a moment, as if listening to an echo trapped inside his mind. Then beamed, and began to run. "This way!"

Romana raced after him.

"You can still hear Seo, can't you?" Romana asked. "She's still using you as a buffer, while she interfaces with your TARDIS."

"Yes, but she's very faint — like an echo," the Doctor said. "I wouldn't expect anything more, now that she's frozen like everyone else."

Nearby, he saw a Dalek begin to twitch.

"I think that's the beginning of our time loop," Romana said, noticing it, as well.

"Good thing we're almost there, then!" the Doctor said, turning one final corner. "Just through this door, and…!"

The final door was locked.

The Doctor, instinctively, reached for his sonic screwdriver. Then remembered that the younger-Seo had stolen it.

"Romana," the Doctor said, spinning around. "You wouldn't happen to be carrying around a spare sonic…?"

But Romana was also missing.

"Romana?" the Doctor called, retracing his steps.

He nearly collided with Romana, as she ran towards him, a small pen-like tool in her hand.

She showed it to him.

"I found it on the floor," Romana explained. "Dropped, beside a cluster of broken machinery and two bulkheads that looked like they'd been forced open."

It was the Doctor's sonic screwdriver.

"By a stroke of luck, this happens to be exactly what we need!" The Doctor turned around, and buzzed it at the door.

The door whooshed open.

Revealing a large metal room, full of machinery banks and twitching Daleks, their gun-stalks pointed at the imprisoned woman strapped to a gigantic ringlike machine, her left hand glowing a brilliant purple.

In midair, racing towards her, was a Dalek extermination beam.

"No wonder you felt close to death," the Doctor remarked, watching as the beam circled around the time loop, getting closer and closer to Seo and then retreating back to the start of the loop. "By the look of it, we only had a few seconds left."

He spun around, and began to reprogram one of the Dalek machinery banks, nearby.

"You get her down," the Doctor called, to Romana. "I'll end Project Olitzitz, once and for all."

"Me?!" Romana felt this was highly unfair. Why was _she_ the one who had to climb up and release someone? She was President of Gallifrey! Presidents didn't climb around in a very undignified manner, inside Dalek battleships. "Can't you at least hand me your sonic screwdriver?"

"Can't," the Doctor said, buzzing the computer bank with it. "Busy."

Romana sighed. But she could see that, with every moment she delayed, the time loop was expanding. Getting closer and closer to the moment the beam struck Seo, and Romana died, as well.

She swallowed her pride, and climbed up the Nightmare Ring.

"Don't worry," said Romana, as she approached the frozen Seo — who was looking halfway between fear and trying frantically to think up a way out of this. Romana reached out, to undo the straps of her restraints. "I'm certain the Doctor has everything under contr…"

Romana cried out, as she touched Seo, and a spark shot through the entire Nightmare Ring machine. It zigzagged across and through it, crackling and sizzling, creating a burst of chronic interference that made Romana almost lose her footing and tumble to the ground.

Seo gasped, and unfroze, with a start.

"No, wait, you can't…!" Seo began to cry out.

Then realized… the Daleks around her were stuck in a loop. And the Dalek extermination beam had never actually hit her.

"What the…?" Seo said.

"Yes, sorry about that," said the Doctor, still messing around with the Daleks' computer. "Had to short out the differential between you and Romana. That's what was causing the problem, see."

Romana, meanwhile, recovered her footing, and caught her breath. "Differential?"

"Yes, well, Seo's placed so much of herself into the Key to Time, by now, that she's practically part of it," the Doctor replied. He leapt over to another computer bank, and buzzed it with his sonic. "All that glowing green energy she placed, inside! With that much raw power, you could probably grow a whole other Seo, if you wanted!" The Doctor paused, thinking this through. "Granted, she'd probably act a bit different and actually be a seventh segment to the Key to Time… but…"

Romana decided to ignore the Doctor's ramble, and instead, release Seo from the machine. She quickly undid the restraints.

"You do realize, Doctor, that I'm not actually part of the Key to Time, anymore," Romana called out, as she did so. "Astra took my place as the sixth segment, back at the Chaos Pool, remember?"

"Ah, but even so, you've still got a connection to it!" the Doctor said. "We encountered duplicates of two of your three incarnations, while searching for the Key to Time. And Seo could only properly manipulate the Key to Time when both Queen Astra and Queen Strella were part of her Pacifist group."

"Queen Astra and Queen Strella?" Romana grimaced. "I… see."

"Somehow, you're still connected to the Key to Time, Romana," the Doctor continued. "And it was the very fact that you hadn't come into direct physical contact with Seo — even though every other part of the Key to Time had — that was causing you to die and the Key to be ineffective."

"Uh… huh," Seo said, trying to take in everything around herself. The time loop, gradually stretching. "And why's everyone else… looping?"

"Key to Time," the Doctor said, then launched into a rapid-fire explanation of what he'd done, and where he'd taken them. Ending with, "And, therefore, I could use my brilliant plan to save both you and Romana, at once!"

Seo still looked a little dazed.

But nodded, as if she'd understood it all, perfectly. "I… see."

The Doctor buzzed the computer terminal, one last time. Then beamed.

"Aha! Brilliant!" the Doctor cried.

Romana helped Seo climb down the Nightmare Ring. "I suppose you're going to tell us what terribly clever thing you've just done, now?"

"Set the program to delete itself, once time properly restarted," the Doctor said. "And I just deleted the Daleks' way of tracking where Seo was." Pointed the sonic up, and buzzed it at the nearest bulkhead that Seo was about to run through. It slammed shut, before Seo could escape through it. "Oh, and there's no need to escape the Lady President, Seo. She's already pardoned you."

Seo blinked. She still looked a little dazed and disoriented from the temporal differential shorting out. "She's… what?"

"Narvin supplied evidence against certain members of the CIA, in exchange for your freedom," Romana said, carefully omitting that one of the people he'd given evidence against, had, in fact, been himself.

"I… see." Seo pressed her hand up to her head, feeling faint. "I'm sorry, I'm just feeling… a little…"

She almost toppled over.

Romana raced out, to grab her. Caught Seo just before she hit the ground.

"Yes, of course! Her younger-self is still trapped!" the Doctor realized. He jumped over a set of computer banks, and began racing up the right side of the Nightmare Ring, to help Seo's younger-self get free. "No wonder she's feeling faint. She's still partially improbable!" He buzzed at the restraint field surrounding the trapped girl. "How are _you_ feeling, Romana?"

Romana was about to reply that she was feeling fine… when Seo suddenly snapped her eyes open, grabbed Romana by the arms, and in about three acrobatic martial arts maneuvers, had wrestled Romana into a headlock.

"Roma…?" the Doctor began.

But yelped, as he felt himself grabbed and slammed against the Nightmare Ring machine.

It was Seo's younger-self.

She'd unfrozen, back when the older Seo had unfrozen, and had been spending the intervening moments freeing herself from the Daleks' trap. The first chance she'd had, to grab someone… well, she took it.

"The Doctor," the girl growled. "The one with the delicious blood. How convenient." She turned to Seo, hatred burning in her young eyes. "You. Admit you're not my future-self, or I kill your friend. Right here. Right now."

Seo shrugged. "Go ahead. I need him dead, anyways."

The girl almost dropped the Doctor, she was so shocked. "What?"

"Sorry, Doctor, but the Black Guardian's made it very clear — either you die, or Narvin does," said Seo. She turned away from the Doctor. "And I can't let Narvin die."

"Seo, think about this!" the Doctor shouted. "The Black Guardian will never let you…!"

The girl punched him in the stomach. "It's not your turn to talk, dumbo." She looked up at Seo, again. "So… what? You're going to let me kill the Doctor, so I'll let you go?"

Romana, still caught in a headlock, tried to twist out of Seo's grip — but Seo expertly noticed the motion and slammed her elbow down in Romana's back, pushing her into the Dalek machinery.

"Stop struggling, Time Lady," Seo warned. "Or I'll do some real damage." She tossed back her hair, and glanced at her younger-self. "No, I'm not _just_ letting you kill the Doctor. I'm giving you everything you've ever wanted. The power to become the supreme being in the universe: the new Daleks."

The girl's younger-self broke into a large, toothy grin. "So… you admit it! You're _not_ my future!"

Seo shrugged. "In exchange for giving you supreme power over everything," she said, "you're going to do two things for me — right now." She wrestled Romana down, again. "One. Use the Nightmare Ring to wipe out the Daleks. And two… use it to wipe out the Time Lords."

"Oh, you backstabbing, thankless…!" Romana cursed, still struggling to get free.

Seo kept her grip on Romana. "Except for Narvin and the Lady President, of course." She easily countered Romana's attacks, and kept her restrained. "Narvin is mine. And as for the Lady President… well… _I_ get to kill her, in revenge for what her people did to me."

The girl looked dumbfounded. "What's this? Some kind of new game or something?"

"Not a game," Seo said. "I said I'd stop this Time War, and I'm going to stop it. Even if I have to wipe out both sides, to do so."

The Doctor carefully adjusted his grip on the sonic screwdriver, trying not to make it too obvious that he was altering settings. "The surge from the Key to Time, this close to her former-self, must have flipped her into some fugue state, between them both. She's become partially evil."

If he could just snap her out of it…!

"She isn't my future!" the girl said, grabbing the sonic screwdriver out of the Doctor's hands. She stuck her tongue out, at the Doctor. "It's my sonic, now, Doctor."

"This has nothing to do with the Key to Time," Seo told the Doctor. "Truth is… I've gotten a better offer. I _wanted_ to believe that I could change the Daleks, stop your Time War, make the universe better. All by myself! And you know where that got me? Two seconds away from death, Doctor. Just two seconds."

"Seo, earlier, you told me that all you ever wanted was to give back the time and lives you took away," the Doctor insisted. "Think! Remember! All those planets you rebuilt! All those people you care about!"

Seo's eyes were still cold, calculating, and cruel. Her face still impassive. "I was wrong," she said, simply. "There's only one person I should have followed, right from the very beginning. Only one person _really_ cares about me."

The girl, still holding the Doctor, shuddered. "The Shadow," she muttered.

"No," said Seo. "Not the Shadow." She glanced over to her left. "Him."

Everyone looked to Seo's left. A strange man, dressed all in black with a dead crow on his head, was standing there. An evil grin on his face.

"So you've finally given in," the Black Guardian said. "After all that defiance, all that anger…"

"Everything I thought I knew was a lie," Seo cut in. She twisted Romana's arm, until Romana shrieked. "The Time Lords made my life hell. And even after I practically punched the Daleks in the face with 'inner peace', they still just wanted to kill." She shook her head. "They're both as bad as each other. Only Narvin is salvageable."

"Then you agree to be my agent?" said the Black Guardian. "You agree to everything?"

"Spare Narvin," Seo said, "and… yes. It's a deal." Glancing back at her younger self, irritated, she added, "What's taking you so long? Just eat the Doctor, already!"

The girl shrugged. "I'm enjoying the show." She gave a dark smile. "Besides. I want to see you kill the woman in the stupid hat." She nodded at Romana — who was, indeed, wearing a really stupid hat. "Because, if you don't… I'm not buying this act for a second."

The Black Guardian glanced between Seo and her younger self. "She has a point."

Seo maneuvered Romana under her left arm. Then extended her right hand out, to the Black Guardian.

"This hand is me," Seo said. "My essence. What some might call… my soul." She took a long, deep breath. "Take it. All of it."

Her younger self's jaw dropped open.

"You stupid idiot!" the girl shouted. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Romana still struggled to break free. With Seo only using one hand, she could feel less resistance to her struggles. Romana knew… this was her chance.

The Black Guardian regarded her, carefully. "You'd really give me everything? You'd surrender, completely?"

"If you save Narvin, then yes," said Seo, hand still extended. "I'll be your agent. My soul is yours. My life is yours. Everything I am… is yours."

"Seo, don't do this!" the Doctor insisted. "You're still dazed from the Key to Time differential shorting out. When you get back to your normal self, you'll regret this."

"You wanna stop her?" the girl asked, loosening her grip on the Doctor. She grabbed him by his collar, and hurled him to the ground. "So stop her! Don't let her give him anything!"

The Doctor began to run.

Romana, meanwhile, finally managed to pull free from Seo, and grabbed a wrench, nearby, to thud down on Seo's head. Seo, noticing the motion, snapped her left hand up and caught Romana by the wrist.

"Do it," Seo said to the Black Guardian. "Take my right hand. Now."

The Doctor sprinted. "Seo, no!"

But he was too late.

They were all too late.


	51. Chapter 51

The Black Guardian grabbed her by the hand, his form growing bigger and his face growing more and more luminous, as he laughed in triumph.

"It's always best when the toughest ones break!" the Black Guardian said. "And you, my agent, will spread chaos throughout eternity and beyond! You will…!"

Then Romana cried out.

And Seo's grip on the Black Guardian's hand tightened.

"You poor, pathetic idiot," Seo told the Black Guardian, a hard glare on her face. "Didn't anyone ever tell you? My sire took away my powers. That means, unless I'm hooked up to a TARDIS or holding the Key to Time… the power of my hands _doesn't work._ "

"What?" The Black Guardian stared down at their clasped-together hands. "But I can feel the power! I can feel…!"

A powerful wind swept through the chamber, as if from nowhere.

"We're in an unstable area of space-time," said Seo, "caught in a time loop created by one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe. And I am holding onto someone connected to that artifact." Her voice dropped. "You're not feeling my power. Your feeling _its_ power. The power of the Key to Time."

"Impossible!" the Black Guardian shouted, trying to shake his hand free from Seo's grip.

But for some reason, he couldn't.

"Nope, you can't break this handshake," Seo confirmed. "In fact, you probably can't even leave this room, anymore. Wanna know why?" Her voice dropped. "Because I know my past-self. Better than anyone. And if there's even a sliver of a thought, in her mind, that we're the same person, she'd never let you take my right hand. She'd use any power at her disposal, to stop you. Even…" with a glance over her shoulder, "the power of the Nightmare Ring."

The Doctor glanced back, too.

He remembered what he'd seen, back in the Dalek base, in the Pleiades. He remembered the way time had felt shattered and scarred, after the Daleks had used the machine.

And he knew that the Nightmare Ring, as it appeared, now, looked exactly the same as the Nightmare Ring he'd seen, in the future.

Broken in exactly the same way.

"Romana, we need to take shelter!" the Doctor said, grabbing Romana and yanking her away from Seo. "Now!"

The Nightmare Ring was powering up. Full blast.

The girl, inside, looked terrified, as she realized the Nightmare Ring was already broken. And she knew… this was all going to go very, very badly.

Seo, still gripping the Black Guardian's hand, didn't look frightened.

She stared into his eyes. Her own were hard and cold.

"Imagine feeling time tearing itself apart, around you," Seo said. "I'm guessing, even if you control half the universe… that'd hurt. It'd hurt a lot."

The Black Guardian struggled to break free from her.

But found, to his horror, that he was already too weak to do anything.

"Let me go, you speck of ephemeral dust!" the Black Guardian roared. "Or I will hunt you down to the ends of creation, and wreak a terrible vengeance on you!"

His words lashed through the air like whips.

Seo didn't even flinch.

"My right hand is me," Seo told him. "And… you know what? This is what I'm like. Underneath the sweetness, the hope, the love and smiling and warmth and sunlight… I'm still that bitter, angry, merciless little girl who lost her daddy." She dropped her voice to a growl. "And I'm going to really _enjoy_ watching you suffer."

Then a burst of fractured time ripped out of the machine, shattering the air around them. The Black Guardian screamed, as he crumpled and deflated, his coherence torn, as his ability to manifest in the lower dimensions broke up…

And then vanished, into the screams of time.

Seo, now clutching air, gritted her teeth, trying to stumble to safety. But every step was sluggish, her eyes burned with pain, and with a heaving, coarse breath… she collapsed.

Romana jumped up, from the spot the Doctor had found for them to hide, beneath the machine — where the fractured time couldn't reach them.

"No!" Romana cried, trying to run to Seo.

The Doctor grabbed Romana's arm, to pull her back to safety. "Romana, she knows what she's doing! She must! She survived it, before, remember?"

Except… the last time she'd survived it, back in the Dalek base, Seo had been hooked up to the Nightmare Ring — in the eye of the storm. Now, she was standing directly in front of it.

"I promised Narvin that nothing would happen to her, Doctor," Romana said, as she ran out into the maelstrom. "And that's a promise I intend to keep."

Romana felt herself almost torn apart, as she waded through the chaotic and scarred time winds. She gritted her teeth, forcing herself to hold together, as she struggled to walk… and then, dropping to her hands and knees, crawl… towards Seo.

She grabbed Seo by her arms.

Seo looked up, weakly. She could barely keep her eyes open. She mouthed a surprised, "You?" before her head sagged from the strain of keeping it upright.

Romana pulled, again. Not willing to let go.

Then, next thing she knew, the Doctor was beside her, helping her lift Seo and drag her to safety. Around them, the Daleks screamed, as they were shattered apart by the chaotic time winds.

Romana ignored them.

Just kept carrying Seo to safety, with as much persistence as she could manage…

* * *

On the planet Atrios, a 4th incarnation Doctor and a 1st incarnation Romana both jumped, as their makeshift segment to the Key to Time finally burst into flames. And the time loop unravelled.

* * *

Not far away, on a Dalek battleship, the air nearly exploded, as the time loop unravelled and the full force of the temporal scarring billowed out, across the ship.

"Inside!" the Doctor urged, as they arrived at their hidey-hole, beneath the machine. "Quickly!"

They only just had time to get in, before time fractured around them, splitting and then unsplitting, then splitting again, creating a familiar interference pattern across the walls.

The same pattern the Doctor had seen at the Pleiades Dalek Base.

Then, in a few seconds, the air cleared. The fracture receded into temporal scarring. The destructive time winds disappeared.

Romana and the Doctor caught their breaths, as they looked down at Seo. She was slumped against one of the supporting struts of the Nightmare Ring, her eyes closed, her mouth open — but not a single breath passing through her lips.

"Is she going to be all right?" Romana asked.

The Doctor bent down. "She isn't breathing." He took out his sonic screwdriver, began buzzing it at her. "Perhaps if I…?"

In response to the sonic, Seo suddenly jerked and gasped, coughing violently. She still didn't open her eyes.

"Am I dead?" Seo muttered. "Is this Hell?"

The Doctor tucked his sonic into his pocket. "Well, considering we're in the middle of a Dalek battle ship, alongside a broken, time-fracturing machine and your evil past-self — I think that's a matter of opinion."

Seo snapped her eyes open and sat upright, suddenly. Then groaned, doubling up, as her body ached from the effort.

"You're both… still alive, then?" Seo gasped. "I did it? I beat him?"

The Doctor beamed. "The Black Guardian? Oh, yes, you chased him off for a good few years, I'd say. And as for Romana and myself…" He scanned them both with the sonic screwdriver. Checked the readings. "Yep. Very much alive."

Seo leaned back against the support strut, with a sigh of relief.

She looked like she was about to pass out.

"In that case, I have a few words to say," Seo gasped out. Struggling to force the words from her mouth. "Lady President of Gallifrey… Romana… dvorat…"

Seo trailed off, unable to get the rest of the name out.

Romana leaned down, to hear her better. "Yes?"

"Your planet is full of corrupt, decadent, self-important jackasses," Seo breathed, "who are about to plunge this universe into an eternity of warfare and devastation, and who sat back and did nothing to prevent the Shadow's genocides. You… should be… ashamed of…"

She trailed off, gasping too much to get the words out.

Romana leaned back, again. "Charming."

"Be fair, Romana! She _has_ just nearly killed herself, to save you from the Black Guardian," the Doctor pointed out, "and to save Gallifrey from the Daleks. Maybe you should hear her out."

"I think it may be wiser for me to get back to Gallifrey and sort out this mess," said Romana, emerging from the hidey-hole, "before the Daleks take the destruction of this battleship to be an act of war." She glanced up, at the Nightmare Ring. Pointed to the unconscious girl, just to the right of its center. "And, of course, we have to put her back where she belongs."

"Hand her back to the Shadow," the Doctor said, emerging to stand beside Romana. He sighed, with disgust. "I know Seo said this was towards the end, for her younger-self. But you know that, if we put her back, we're just allowing her to kill and murder, all over again. She won't even remember what happened, here, today."

Romana hesitated.

Then fixed her expression to the one typical of Time Lords and high politics.

"But we are Time Lords, Doctor," Romana decided. "We uphold the web of time, even when that web has horrible consequences."

Seo, eyes still closed, again, muttered, "Arrogant, corrupt do-nothings."

The Doctor glanced at Seo, then at Romana, as if to say, 'Seo has a point.'

Romana folded her arms, with a sigh. "Something in her past turned her from a genocidal maniac into someone willing to take on the Daleks and the Black Guardian, for the sake of a Time Lady she disapproves of and had never met, before," said Romana. "It's an event that the younger-her hasn't encountered, yet. If we don't put her back where she belongs… do you want to risk having her skip that crucial moment, and remain a genocidal maniac for the rest of her life?"

The Doctor tucked away his sonic screwdriver. "Well. I suppose you might have a point."

He looked down at Seo, but she was already out, cold.

No more words of criticism, for now.

"Give me a bunk up," the Doctor told Romana, preparing to climb up the Nightmare Ring and fetch the girl. "I'll bring her back. After all… I've already grown quite chummy with her stepdad."


	52. Chapter 52

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter, after this one.
> 
> Enjoy!

 

The moment the TARDIS left the Dalek battle ship, a figure in a white safari suit appeared, beside the Nightmare Ring. It was the very same figure who'd appeared before Seo, long ago, brought her to the Chaos Pool, and helped her mend the Key to Time — in order to prevent the Time War.

Shame of it was, the Black Guardian had tried to twist that into a plot to kill Romana…

But still. That was over, now.

The White Guardian examined the Nightmare Ring. Then shook his head, in disapproval.

"No, no, this won't do at all," said the White Guardian.

He raised his hands, and the Nightmare Ring slowly faded from reality.

"Much better," the White Guardian said. He could already feel himself regaining his strength, as the Key to Time began to work properly, again, and the universe backed away from the brink of utter chaos. "The next time it appears should be right around when Sil of Thoros Beta finds it. Otherwise… best to leave such dangerous, chaotic artifacts hidden, I think."

* * *

The Dalek Emperor, upon hearing the news, was furious. He had lost the Nightmare Ring, both versions of Seo, and — from what he could tell — it was all the fault of the Time Lords.

Especially the Doctor.

"PREPARE DALEK TIME FLEET," said the Emperor. "BEGIN ASSAULT ON GALLIFREY. THIS MEANS WAR."

"DALEK FLEET WILL BEGIN ASSAULT ON…" the Dalek Supreme began, connecting his plunger into a linkup pad in the wall. Then, registering the data, he… hesitated.

"OBEY!" the Dalek Emperor shouted. "OBEY!"

The Dalek Supreme twisted his plunger. Double checked the data. The problem was… the data was still the same.

And it was conclusive.

"ASSAULT… NOT POSSIBLE," the Dalek Supreme admitted, "AT THIS TIME."

"EXPLAIN!"

"DALEK BANK ACCOUNTS REGISTER… INSUFFICIENT FUNDS FOR COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES," the Dalek Supreme said. "WE DO NOT HAVE THE RESOURCES."

"THAT IS NOT POSSIBLE!" the Emperor thundered.

The Dalek Supreme hadn't thought so, either. But it was as though all the Daleks' money and resources were just… gone.

Stolen.

"RECOMMENCE EXTRACTION OF RESOURCES," the Emperor demanded. "THE DALEKS WILL DESTROY THE TIME LORDS. WE WILL BE THE SUPREME BEINGS!"

And he was sure they would.

Just as soon as they could afford to.

* * *

Seo woke up somewhere bright and sunny. She could feel the glow of sunlight warming her cheeks and spreading across her skin.

In the background, she heard the Doctor saying, "…could be done. In theory, anyways. All that glowing green energy Seo's stored, inside that Key to Time… it'd be a simple process to turn it into a person. Sure, it wouldn't quite be Seo, as we know her, now… but if the end result isn't a sneaky kleptomaniac with a good heart and a good head on her shoulders, I'll be amazed."

Romana sighed. "Doctor, while you may find all this fascinating… I'm having more than enough trouble dealing with just one Seo. The last thing I need is for you to start making copies."

The Doctor sounded offended. "What's wrong with her? She saved our lives."

"And nearly started a war, in the process!" Romana said. "Just consider yourself lucky that the Daleks have backed down. Thanks to Seo, here, Gallifrey has neither the resources nor the funds to go to war, at the moment."

"Neither do the Daleks," came Narvin's voice. "You can thank her for that, too."

Seo's eyes snapped open, and she bolted upright, at the voice. "Narvin?"

All three Time Lords, who'd been chatting nearby, turned to face her. Narvin's face instantly fell into sudden relief and joy — quickly covered up with his usual Time Lord superciliousness.

"Awake at last, I see," Narvin said, crossing towards her. He sat down on the bed, beside her. Brushed a strand of hair from her eyes, gently. "You're doing surprisingly well, for someone who's just faced down the Black Guardian."

Seo felt herself smiling, despite herself — because she knew she was supposed to be furious at Narvin, right now. And this wasn't helping. "I'm pretty sure I should be giving you a slap," she said. "But… to be honest…" She caught his hand in hers. "I'm glad you're here. After what the Black Guardian said… I was afraid I might never see you, again."

She paused.

Looked around herself, at the small little house with the cheery, sheer curtains draped across the window.

"Where are we, anyways?" Seo asked. "I don't recognize the house."

The Doctor, across the room, drew back the curtain. "On a planet that both Romana and I thought had been destroyed at least two hundred years ago. And Time Lord records agree with us."

Seo looked out at the rocky planet filled with glittering streams, verdant forests, and squidlike birds rippling through the air. She saw the majestic, green aliens who dominated this world as they ran across the square, outside, their hivelike heads bobbing and their laughter trickling into the room.

"The planet Argolis," Seo said. "Of course! I know this place."

"So do the Doctor and I," said Romana. "Which is odd, because… when we were last here, about 200 years ago, the planet was uninhabitable, its few remaining occupants were sterile, and any attempts to create artificial offspring resulted in warmongering and hatred."

"Oh, yeah," Seo said, with a yawn. "I remember those days. Way, way back, when it was just a leisure hive." She smiled, as she thought about all the work she'd put into this planet, since. All the time and money and help she'd given it, as she worked tirelessly to rebuild what they had so easily destroyed.

Then, suddenly snapping out of her happy reverie, Seo remembered whom she was speaking to.

"I mean… Argolis? I don't know anything about Argolis," Seo said, feigning sudden wide-eyed ignorance. She gestured at the majestic beauty of the landscape, outside. "It was like this when I got here! Honest!"

The Doctor began laughing.

Romana looked to Narvin, for clues as to what Seo was talking about.

"I did warn you that waking up beside the President of Gallifrey might put her a bit on edge," Narvin replied. He turned back to Seo. "I wouldn't worry. President Romana isn't here to arrest you for mucking about with the Web of Time."

"Nope," the Doctor agreed, still laughing. "She's just here to make sure Narvin serves his sentence. Isn't that right, Narvin?"

Narvin closed his eyes, trying to force aside his frustration, and sighed. "Yes, Doctor," he grumbled. "Thank you for bringing that up."

Seo frowned. "Sentence?"

Romana stepped forwards. "As I'm sure you're aware, Narvin was, in part, responsible for certain… tragic events from your childhood."

"You mean the event where a group of Time Lords arranged to kill my father, get me kidnapped, and turn me into a soldier for your Time War?" Seo crossed her arms. "Yes. I'm aware of that fact." She turned a harsh gaze on Narvin.

"Seo, you must believe — I tried my very hardest to stop it," Narvin insisted.

A little of Seo's harsh expression fell away. "I'm aware of that, too," she said. She dropped her head, thinking through a myriad of conflicting emotions. Then sighed. "I don't like holding grudges, Narvin. My sire did… and that hatred was what killed my father and ruined my life." She took a deep breath. "I _want_ to forgive you. But right now, it's… hard. It'll take some time."

"Seo, I can explain," Narvin pleaded.

"No, really, don't," Seo insisted. "I don't want to hear about the Web of Time or your duty as a Time Lord or any of that other BS. I get it — I'm the other-lady in your life. Your first love always has been, and always will be, Gallifrey."

Narvin didn't know what to say to this.

"If it helps, your sire put Narvin through the ringer, when he tried to stand up for you," the Doctor added. "Three days of torture, the Shadow said. Sounded nasty. Lots of screaming."

Narvin looked like if the Doctor didn't shut up, soon, he was going to throttle the man.

For Rassilon's sake, the Doctor was making Narvin sound like a total wuss!

In front of Seo!

The idiot!

(Thing was… Seo _was_ looking on at him more sympathetically, now… but that was still no reason to make Narvin come off as a sissy.)

"And when he first saw you, passed out and pale and barely breathing from your fight with the Black Guardian," the Doctor continued, "he actually broke down and started crying, like a little…"

"Doctor!" Narvin barked.

"What? I'm just trying to cut the tension," the Doctor said, with a shrug. "After all, you two better get along, if you want to do your community service, Narvin."

Seo did a double-take. "Community service?!"

"A rather strange Earth punishment that the Doctor proposed," Romana admitted. "Apparently, criminals can… contribute to their community, instead of serving jail time."

"Yeah, I know what it means," Seo said, waving the explanation away. "Picking up coke cans, on the side of the highway. Is that really Narvin's punishment?"

The Doctor cleared his throat. "Actually, I thought of the community more as… the entire universe." He gestured at the planet, around them. "And, as you said, if you take away someone's future… maybe it's best to spend your time giving others a future. Giving back the time and lives you stole."

A smile spread across Seo's face. Wider and wider, until it turned into a beam.

"I like your friends, Narvin," Seo remarked. "They're kind of strange, sometimes — but they've got wonderful ideas about criminal justice." She slipped out of bed, and stretched. "Well, I guess there's no better time to start than the present."

"What? Here?" Narvin looked out the window. It looked like it was already a paradise.

"Of course!" Seo cried. "There are schools to build and budgets to balance and a whole batch of ezerot frogs I'm growing, to balance the ecosystem in the southern hemisphere. " She pushed him outside, with a grin. "You get started by heading to the local schoolhouse and helping some kids learn math. I'll catch you up."

Narvin, still not sure if this was a good idea, hesitated.

Then decided it was better to just do what she said, and, with a sigh, headed off to do his community service.

Seo turned back to the Doctor and Romana. "Thank you," she said. "For Narvin. And… you know… for pardoning me, saving my life, those kinds of things. But mostly for Narvin."

"Yes," Romana said. She stood straight and tall, putting on her presidential stance, and offered Seo a hand to shake. "And on behalf of Gallifrey and myself, I thank you for your protection of our planet and of its president."

Romana paused, looking down at her outstretched hand — her right — and realized her mistake. A little awkwardly, she took her hand back.

"Sorry," Romana muttered.

Seo laughed, and took Romana's right hand in her own. "Like I told the Black Guardian… they're just hands, now. Regular, ordinary hands." She shook Romana's hand. "Lady President Romanadvoratrelundar, of the Time Lords: I don't agree with your society, its laws, or its xenophobic and hopelessly stagnant ideals." She let go of Romana's hand. "But _you're_ not like that. So I guess it's a good thing you're the one in charge."

The Doctor looked on at them, amused. A Time Lord President, shaking hands with a vampire! Who'd have thought they'd see the day?

"Does this mean you'll stop bankrupting all our temporal weapons suppliers?" Romana said.

Seo shrugged. "Does that really need an answer?"

So… no, then.

Seo turned to the Doctor.

"Doctor," Seo said. "Thank you. For the advice, for the help, and… just… for being there, throughout. It was an emotional roller coaster for me, and I don't know if I could have gotten through it, without you. As my friend Danyul would say — you're a real mensch."

The Doctor wasn't sure he'd ever been called a mensch before.

He rather liked it.

"Oh, believe me, it was my pleasure," the Doctor said. "You're a good person, you know. You have got a good heart."

"Even if it's not beating."

"Well, details, details," the Doctor dismissed. He grinned at her. "And… I have a feeling… you and I will meet, again."

"If we do, I hope we're on the same side," Seo replied. "I can be kind of a scumbag, after all."

She turned, headed towards the door.

"I better get after Narvin," Seo said. "He's going to be clueless, without me." She was about to leave, when she paused. Hesitated, looking back. "Oh, and Doctor? President Romana? About the Key to Time…"

They all looked at one another.

"With an object as powerful as that, I think it's better if we… pretended I hadn't repaired it," Seo said. "If anyone asks you about the Key, you can just say… it was destroyed. Keep it simple."

"And the glowing green energy?" Romana asked. "I assume you don't want us to mention anything about that, either."

"Absolutely not!" Seo confirmed. "I don't want there to be two of me, floating around. There wouldn't be anything left to steal!"

She winked at the Doctor.

Then turned, and walked out the door. Ready to embark on yet another new adventure.


	53. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And the end.
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone! If you liked this story, check out "Shockwave Vampires" and "Dux Bellorum", available on Amazon Kindle and fictionpress!

_ A long, long time later… _

"And this, Brother Vaclav, is the greatest secret of the Order of Dagon," said Brother Ferdinand, showing the newest monk around. He approached the main chamber, which glowed green with the energy it housed. "We call it… the Key."

Brother Vaclav shielded his eyes, as he approached it.

The energy was so beautiful, glowing in the center of the room. It almost felt… alive. Like it was singing — a beautiful song, indescribable, a song of life and trees and rebuilding.

"The Key?" said Brother Vaclav.

"The Key is energy," said Brother Ferdinand. "It is a power greater than any other, and infused with a dark and hidden secret."

"How did it come to be here?" Brother Vaclav asked. He stepped forwards, enraptured by it. "It looks almost… alive."

Brother Ferdinand bowed his head, solemnly. "No one knows. The origins of the Key are shrouded in mystery. There was a story, once…"

Brother Ferdinand stopped.

Then shook his head.

"No," Ferdinand said. "It's nothing."

"Tell me," said Vaclav.

Ferdinand looked back at the glowing green energy. "It's said that once, there lived a brave and wise woman, a Great Rebuilder, who brought life to dying worlds. It's said that she built the Key to stop a terrible war… and when that war eventually did break out, she hid the Key here. She entrusted it to one of her dearest friends, a Monk of the Order of Dagon, to keep safe."

"That doesn't sound so fantastical to me," said Brother Vaclav.

"There's more," said Brother Ferdinand. "It's said the Great Rebuilder was drawn into the very war she tried to prevent. She found herself unable to escape it. None of her friends heard from her. Everyone worried about what might have happened to her. And then… one day… the universe simply forgot her. As if she had never even existed, in the first place." Brother Ferdinand pointed at the glowing energy, in the room. "She left nothing behind. Her entire existence was erased. Now, all that's left of her is this myth… and the Key."

"The Key is her invention?" said Vaclav.

"No," said Ferdinand. He raised up his right hand. "The story says… it's far more than that. Her right hand. Her sacrifice. Her soul."

Brother Vaclav's eyes lit up, as he realized what this meant. "But that means… the energy is alive!"

"So the legend says," Brother Ferdinand said. "It says the Key is a formless, shapeless person — the woman time forgot. Waiting to be reborn… one day…" He shook his head. "But it's only a story. Souls do not glow green and float around, randomly. It cannot be true."

Brother Valcav wasn't so sure.

He could hear the energy singing to him, softly but clearly, in a sad, beautiful melody. It was the song of a woman trapped by a terrible war, watching and waiting and knowing… she'd never make it out, alive.

Valcav reached out, as if to touch the Key…

The doors burst open. Another monk raced in, looking panicked and terrified.

"Brother Ferdinand!" the monk cried. "It's her! The Abomination! The Goddess Glorificus! She knows we have the Key! She's found us!"

Ferdinand looked alarmed. "Then we must not delay," he said. He picked up a book of magic spells. "You know what the Order of Dagon was instructed, long ago. If ever the Key were to be located, it must be given form and hidden somewhere safe."

Valcav heard the song of the glowing green energy pause, for a moment. Then… the energy seemed to sigh a single word…

"Finally."


End file.
